July 25, surgeon appointment

I am officially weird. I consider that a badge of honour.

At least I have another piece of the puzzle, but it raises more questions. It turns out I have a very rare tumour of the pancreas, an acinar cell carcinoma (yeah, I'd never heard of it either). I will be having chemotherapy, an appointment made with the oncologist for Monday. We are still waiting for tissue analysis results to be completed at the Austin from the needle biopsies they took of the pancreas last week, (so results today were technically incomplete) and I am having an ultrasound tomorrow - if they can see any accessible metastases, we can set up a liver biopsy to get a bigger tissue sample for genetics, in case they can offer immunotherapy as well.

Oh, so this is what a pinball feels like. Ricochet from paddle to paddle, flip here, flip there. I'm dizzy. I want my sedate, routine, boring suburban life back. And I still dont know what I'm in for....All I can do is take things one step at a time, and I will. I am proud of myself that I didnt cry today. I had my list of questions, mostly about tumor complications (its adjacent to the artery feeding the intestine so that troubles me) Surgeon answered as best he could, reassured my concerns.

Calm, cool and practical, that's me! You work colleagues stop sniggering this instant!

There's not a lot to add, Í will update after I have been to the oncologist.

Intermission:

I started this blog part way through my adventures, the fat lady on stage, microphone in hand; so for those who dont know the background, here is the backstory: (I include some medical terminology for my colleagues, everyone else the fancy words are just descriptive adjectives, just ignore them)

October 2023, out of the blue, 1st ever episode of pancreatitis. CT showed a complex cyst, MRI suggested a tumour, subsequent endoscopic FNA biopsy - normal tissue. Seemed to be acting like a focal inflammatory mass....

We elected to monitor, a followup MRI December 2023 - damn thing had got smaller. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Whoever heard of a cancer shrinking? Well, Hello!

Monitor some more, MRI March 2024. Oh-oh, it's got bigger again. But the radiologist provided a very floral description as to why this had just SO many features of autoimmune pancreatitis. PET scan disagreed, favored tumour. Another biopsy, another negative result. Lucky me

What could they do? Nothing definitive to go on. Wait a bit more, another MRI July 2024. Well, would you look at that, its metastasized. Now I'm fucked. So here we are....you're all caught up

And the damn luck fairy, didnt even have the decency to let me win Lotto to balance my bad luck. No, $8.55 does not cut it!