News from the Doc

I know I haven’t posted an update in a while. Last week I saw the doc for my “9 month” check up. Been processing what he said and haven’t really been ready to share it with everyone until now, as there was good news but there was also some news I would rather not have heard.

Recently, I was convicted by a post about how social media tends to show only the glossy pretty part of life. I will admit to cropping photos and not telling the whole story at times and leaving out some of the struggle of life. But I truly believe that a life lived to the fullest takes risk and does not come without disappointment, heartache, failure and pain. I hope not to dwell on these things, but I do not want to leave them out of the story because they are real and they are present in my life.

Let’s start with the good news…the doc said the x-rays look great and the bone is healing well. He said as far as he’s concerned no restrictions are needed on my activities from a bone standpoint. Therefore, the only limiter is my strength. I was very excited to hear this and it gives me more confidence to push myself, to find my limits, and to push a little more. I’ve been waiting for so long to hear these words, that it’s kind of surreal to actually hear them–no more limits!

Now for the not so good news…on the MRI there are some shadows and we don’t know definitively what they are. It could be the bone healing but it could also be a sign the tumor is growing back–there’s no way of knowing until things either get bigger or go away. Not really the news I wanted to hear.

We took a risk putting bone graft in my knee instead of cement, as the tumor is a high contrast on the cement and it is easy to tell when the tumor reoccurs. But the cement comes with another set of issues and the possibility of no more running 😦 Given the choice again, I would make the same one.

So what now? Well, we wait…but while we wait we move forward and in the meantime make as much progress as we can getting stronger, we pursue our goals, and we do everything we can to be a part of the cure (more on that later). In three months, I’ll go for my next set of images and with more information we can decide what to do next.

Thanks for your support all along the way. This journey has been full of ups and downs, and so many of you have been there for all of them. As I have said before, this is a long road that I am on and will be something I might deal with for the rest of my life. But I am not going to let it get me down, it is what it is and I can’t change it, but I will do what I can to change the things I can.

So that’s the news from the Doc. Please don’t feel bad or sorry, this stupid giant cell tumor picked the wrong gal to mess with. Going to kick it’s ass as many times as I have to!