Unenlightening

I am now three months post radiation therapy, which was given as followup to a big surgery, which was followup to chemotherapy, which was followup to earlier radiation, which was followup to a previous massive surgery, which was followup to the first round of chemotherapy, which was followup to the first surgery, which was followup to finding a scary tumor during a colonoscopy, which was followup to years of telling doctors that I had rectal bleeding and nausea.


So I had another set of PET/CT scans to see how successful this has all been and check whether I need to follow up with yet more treatment. There are a few reports that one might expect at this point:

Enlightening

You are healthy and we don't see any problems. Go home and enjoy the holidays!

You have a problem here. Let's get moving on taking care of it.

Unenlightening

You might have problems, but we don't know what they are. They might get worse. We can't do anything if they do. Maybe somebody else can, but who knows? Enjoy the holiday!

I got the unenlightening report this time. Having seen my own scans, I realize that it's too much to expect a clean bill of health. I'm such a mess inside that it's beyond the capabilities of modern medical science to decipher just what's in there. The best gauge of how healthy I am is how I feel. But my worry is that I don't feel good enough to be in the clear.