Test Results

As scary and hard as cancer treatment is, researchers have made some helpful gains in the decade since Kate first had cancer - one of those gains is the availability of a personalized blood test which will show if DNA from her cancer is circulating in her bloodstream. When it was offered, Kate jumped at the chance to have it - one of the hardest parts of cancer is not knowing if it's really, really gone. 

They used the tissue from the tumor they extracted during her surgery in October to develop the test, and took a blood sample at the end of the month for the first run. It took time for the test to be ready, and the results from that first draw came back in early January. 

They showed a small level of tumor still circulating in her blood.

When she shared the news with me, my heart plummeted. It was SO NOT what I'd wanted to hear. I cried inside, and mentally braced myself against the possibility her treatments might not work to get it gone.

But then logic stepped in to assert itself. The test was done after surgery, yes, but it was before she went through her five weeks of radiation. Perhaps, just perhaps, that particular trip through the valley of misery wasn't just-in-case. Perhaps the rays had caught the remaining errant cells.

I waited with bated breath for the next few weeks. Hoping anyways, but afraid, so afraid, the cancer had established itself elsewhere in her body, out of reach of the radiation treatment.

I thought we'd have to wait another month or two for them to run the test again (it's an expensive little bugger), but they ran it at the end of January.

This time it came back negative!!!!! She is currently NED - No Evidence of Disease. The beast has gone back under cover! (I don't quite dare to hope it's vanquished forever.)

This time I did cry. It's been a week. Tears of relief still spring to my eyes and something eases in my chest so I can breathe a little easier whenever I think of it.

She didn't go through all that for nothing. She really, really, really (three reallys!) has a chance to get better a second time. I have no words for how comforting I find this knowledge.

I do know that knowing it's gone (for now - my brain insists on adding the qualifier) is making the Lupron (aka that damned shot)-induced process of instant menopause easier for her. Estrogen withdrawal is not fun, she is grumpy, exhausted, and hormonal, but it's also not the misery of chemo or radiation. It's her best shot of keeping the beast at bay, and she will follow the regimen as long as she can. 

Speaking from experience, side effects can become overwhelming over time - but I know she will take it one day, one step, at a time. 

We have today.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!