Her belly is on fire

“So what did you think of my PET-scans?” my wife asked yesterday (Thursday, March 3, 2011) after we viewed them at Wilmot Cancer Center (“WILL-mott;” as in “Mott’s applesauce”) in Strong Hospital.
“Frightening!” I blurted.
My wife has cancer, supposedly not a death-sentence, or so we are told.
In other words, it’s treatable — manageable.
A while ago we met some lady at Wilmot who had been jerking around with breast-cancer 17 years.
Actually my wife has two cancers.
The first is Non-Hodgkins B-cell lymphoma.
It appeared about three years ago as a large hard tumor in her abdomen.
CHOP-chemotherapy (cyclophosphamide, hydroxydaunorubicin [doxorubicin], Oncovin [vincristine], and prednisone) poofed it, but you’re not actually cured.
Lymphoma keeps coming back.
Senator Fred Thompson has it.
Second is breast-cancer, although there was never a primary site.
It never initiated in her breasts.
It just metastasized into her bones, etc.
We beat that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive, and Femara inhibits the formation of estrogen.
No more breast-cancer in her bones, and small skin-tumors disappeared.
Meanwhile, tumors were growing in her abdomen.
The way a PET-scan (Positron emission tomography) works, is it depicts heavy glucose uptake (in this case, a glucose equivalent).
This is true of your brain, but also of cancer.
Cancerous cells will “light up” on a PET-scan.
Which was what we were seeing on Wilmot’s computer-monitor; her most recent PET-scan, about a week ago.
“Her belly is on fire,” I thought.
Her whole abdomen was filled with bright orangish light.
“All that is cancer,” the doctor said.
“My body is full of cancer,” my wife said.
Well, not exactly. It’s not everywhere, just her abdomen.
I’m told scans three years ago would have looked worse.
But they were not PET-scans; not for the original lymphoma.
Tumor-growth then was more extensive.
I never saw the original CT scans, but what I saw yesterday seemed bad enough.
CT (or CAT = computerized axial tomography) is a medical imaging method employing tomography created by computer processing.
Meanwhile, a reverse turf-war seemed to be going on.
“Not lymphoma,” her lymphoma doctor said.
“Not breast-cancer,” her breast-cancer doctor said.
Yet the enlarging cancerous nodes were pressing her kidneys, and restricting urine-drainage into her bladder through her ureter tubes.
“If that breast-cancer doctor says it’s not breast-cancer, she’s walking into a trap,” I said.
“Just the other day the lymphoma-doctor said it wasn’t lymphoma, a reprise of the seeming reverse turf-battle.”
My wife’s last biopsy was almost a year ago, and that was only a needle-biopsy, not the most reliable indicator.
“Enough of this back-and-forth. It’s about time for a definitive biopsy; end the guessing-game,” I said.
That’s a surgical biopsy, what was recommended anyway.
So the great blow-up on my part was avoided — they didn’t get my Irish up.
The breast-cancer doctor was moving the way we wanted.
A surgical biopsy will be performed, so we treat what’s actually there — instead of “try this and see what happens.”
We also will go back on Femara — which was quite successful.
No discount coupon though; they were out.
So $103.62 for the prescription; her Aetna health insurance is paying $562.37 — the total cost of the prescription is $665.99.
As the “Kid from Brooklyn” says, “what’s it made out of, gold?”
(And that’s a 30-day supply.)
Although $103.62 is nothing compared to what I shelled out to save our Killian dog.
“You look fine, Mrs. Hughes,” said the lymphoma-nurse; “same as last time.”
“She’s not the same,” I interjected.
“I been married to this person over 43 years,” I thought to myself; “and she’s not what she was a month ago.
This shawl bit, which you don’t see, but I do, started about a month ago; she hasn’t been wearing a shawl all her life.”
My wife was also telling her mother-in-Florida that she can’t do anything.
I try to take up the slack some, but I can’t be the full team.
I have this feeling our vegetable-garden may be toast this year, maybe only tomatoes.
And other garden-management projects may also be toast.
And I never have any idea what I’m gonna see: someone acting normal, or supine on our bed or the Castro Convertible, utterly smashed, and in obvious pain.
But we finally seem to be getting somewhere. I suppose there is a future for us; the doctors say so. And my wife keeps talking about “next year.”
So now it’s down to assiduous pain-management.
A while ago we were prescribed OxyCodone® pain-killer, which we thought might be related to OxyContin®, Rush Limbaugh’s favorite drug.
My wife was loath to take it; the alternative was Tylenol.
The OxyCodone bottle was festooned with 89 bazilyun health warnings, side-effects like death.
It’s a “controlled substance“ (for heaven sake).
“In case of death, please notify your physician immediately!”
We also were afraid that if she took it, it might turn her into a strident tub-thumping bellicose Conservative, wildly bouncing up-an-down on the Castro Convertible in a catatonic Limbaugh rage, railing loudly against the evils of unions, the elderly, and the less-fortunate — i.e. anyone in the way of the fat-cat fevered agenda.
She tried it last night, and thankfully it didn’t do that. In fact, what it did was little more than Tylenol, although faster-acting.
It wore off in about four hours, same as Tylenol.
It also left her “spacey,” and even made her slightly dizzy.
So back to Tylenol, but every four hours.
It’s not as scary as OxyCodone.
But we will take the OxyCodone along on our upcoming trip to Florida, in case she needs a sudden hit.
(We are flying to Florida next week to visit my 95-year-old mother-in-law, who lives in a retirement apartment, not “assisted living.”)
“Assiduous pain-management” is Tylenol every four hours, no matter how good she’s feeling. If it’s not every four hours, pain can set in.
She seemed normal when I got home from the YMCA today.

• “Strong Hospital” is one of three large hospitals in the Rochester area. Two are in Rochester proper, and one is in the suburbs west of the city. “Strong” is on the south edge. There are other smaller hospitals, although they are affiliated with the large hospitals.
• “Wilmot” is one of a few cancer-centers in the Rochester area, supposedly the best.
• My wife of 43+ years is “Linda Hughes” (“Mrs. Hughes;” my name [BobbaLew] is “Bob Hughes”).
• I work out in the Canandaigua YMCA Exercise-Gym, appropriately named the “Wellness-Center,” usually three days per week, about three-four hours per visit. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city to the east nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 15 miles away. —We live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield in Western NY, southeast of Rochester.)