I have reached the fun part of the end of the beginning where updates come at much longer intervals and the news is very boring. I am very happy about that and hope to keep it that way.
Last week I had my latest trimesterly surveillance scan and it came back with no suspicious findings. What remains of my colon is looking good, the lesions on my liver that were left from ablation look nice and dead and unchanged, the thing on my kidney is the same size as it has been for as long as there are images of it.
My blood tests this morning came back normal. Liver and kidney function are both good so while one of them is beat up and the other one has an evil hat, they are still filtering and flushing and all the stuff they do. I am a lot better at not giving them too much to deal with than I used to be, which helps.
Basically the discussion with the Good Vibes Crew in Oncology was all about living my life and riding my bike and staying active to load the dice as much as possible in my favor in hopes my luck holds out and there isn’t a recurrence.
My only question this time was about the timing of having my port removed. As usual they basically said it’s up to me. Apparently a lot of people never have them out, or keep them for years.
I am quite a bit more active than the average patient they see, but also very tolerant of the whole process overall. Risk of recurrence is highest in the first two years. They can take the port out any time, but if they have to put another one back in that would probably be there “for the long haul” as it were. I am only a little shy of 7 months out from treatment and even though I find it annoying some of the time, I don’t have any of the psychological issues related to seeing it as a reminder of treatment or anything like that, so I am going to leave it in there for a bit longer. Maybe I’ll throw a port removal pool party in 2026!
If anyone wants to rub it, like a weird third nipple, I will tell you your fortune. A PORT-ent as Bzzl once said.
What? You don’t rub your friends nipples?