Cancer Conference - May 16, 2012

Dr. Goff called today and said that after consulting with his colleagues at the cancer conference (I like to think of it as a Jedi Council or Fellowship from LOTR). He said that because the tumor has wrapped itself around a major blood vessel and nerve, he recommends that I see an oncologist for a few cycles of chemotherapy before they go in and remove the tumor. He said we can take the option of going in, removing the tumor, reconstructing the blood vessel, but that it does carry some risk and could cause complications. I asked him if pathology staged the cancer. He said yes but to be mindful that thymic carcinomas are rare and so the staging is different from other cancers.  He said that it is within a stage 3 or 4 but that does not mean what a stage 4 would with leukemia, breast cancer, etc. He said that means that the tumor is malignant, it has moved outside the thymus gland, and some other things that I don't remember because we were trying to write things down as he stated them. It is a scary to hear your cancer is a rare one but I refuse to let that get my spirits down and to continue to have faith and strength.

One of my favorite role models is not even a real person. Its Rocky Balboa. In the final movie of Rocky, he is telling his son about how life is. I think it is very inspiring and one of my all time favorite movie clips.  As cheesy as it sounds it helps me realize that we can't control everything that happens to us, but we can control how we handle it.  We can either keep fighting or we can give up.

ITS NOT ABOUT HOW HARD YOU CAN HIT