NED!

No Evidence of Disease. This little jargon is one all cancer patients aspire to. NED.

Last Saturday morning I woke up, opened my eyes, put on my glasses and looked around. And the room looked funny….blurry…so I wipe the sleep out of my eyes and try again. Still blurry. I close my left eye and everything looks fine. I close my right eye and…blurry. Hmmm….

I was prepared for eye problems, vision changes even before I began chemo. Remember? I even went out and bought new glasses in case my eyes became too dry to wear my contacts. So I took out the info I received regarding TCH to find which of the three were to blame. It’s the T. And the C. By the end of the day the blurriness caused a throbbing headache.

But, like a good cancer patient when I went to the infusion center on Tuesday morning I informed my nurse of my blurry vision. And she called Dr. Sh who sent over his nurse. I passed her eye exam (it was kinda like the one you get at a DUI checkpoint) and she informed me that Dr. Sh was ordering a CAT Scan of my brain. Just to be sure no nasty little HER2+++ cell had wormed its way up there. He also wanted me to go to my eye doctor and have him take a look.

But first things first…why go to the eye doctor if I have cancer in my brain? So on Thursday I went in for the brain scan. Easy procedure compared to everything else I have done lately. And guess what friends? NED IN THE BRAIN! NED NED NED NED NED!!!!!!!!

NED. Since being told this wonderful news I keep thinking NED. It’s safe to say I am NED in the breasts. There was no cancer in the left breast, a small tumor and some DCIS in the right breast….and since  I no longer have breasts I think it’s safe to assume that I am NED in the breasts. Only one lymph node was removed and that lymph node had a 0.35mm micromets of cancer in it…so while I can’t say with 100% assurance, I think it’s safe to say I am NED in the lymph nodes too.

NED. If I were to have another child and that child was a boy I would name him Ned. What a beautiful sound.

However, if I am NED everywhere why am I still undergoing treatments? Why am I planning on putting myself thru 2 more rounds of chemo and why am I agreeable to radiation?

Because I don’t want to someday say “Oh shit…I should have…”

But (again in a whiney voice) I don’t want to do it.