Intro to Blogville

   (testing...one, two...ahem) Um, so...welcome to my blog.  It's a little hard to type because I'm also eating some crow right now; I vowed I would never blog (even using that word as a verb makes me cringe). Soooo...another one of those never-say-never moments.  
   This just seems to be the most efficient way to communicate.  That way you can follow it or just dip into it when you want to, but it's not all in-your-face with a "Breaking Medical Update!" email. 
   It's not that I mind a blog that tells you how to DO things or shows you COOL STUFF: give me a step-by-step on how to clean out the U-joint under the sink, demonstrate decorating a holiday cookie, show me weird science like what happens when you drop Mentos into Diet Coke (if you haven't done it, do it, so satisfying), let me travel vicariously with you on your European vacation, even demonstrate makeup techniques that I will never ever use, I'm all over it!  But blogs that are all about random opinions and observations about life...I must confess that I have sometimes mocked them.  A little bit.  (I know, it's not nice.)

So the last thing I want to do is create some self-absorbed CANCER BLOG:  "Oh boo hoo, poor me, I don't deserve this, cancer cancer, blah blah blah, cancer, boo hoo, ooh look how brave I am with no hair, yada yada yada."  (open mouth, insert finger, commence gagging)

   Everyone knows someone who has had cancer, and so many of my friends and family have had or currently have cancer--there just isn't any room to act like this is something unique, or that I've been unfairly singled out by the universe.  Since this is all new for us, for a while we'll be The Cancer Family and I'll be Andrea Has Cancer, but once we move forward with treatment and this situation becomes the new normal for my family and people who know me, I hope I'll just go back to being Andrea.  But I realize that we are all stuck in a loop of "what if" until all the test results are in and until we have a treatment plan in place.  The fact that I could joke a little with my son about losing my hair and that I've already promised to several people that I will spend one day in a hooker wig (we'll do an online vote--silver or fuchsia) lets me know that we will all be okay and that there is still room in all this for fun. Because if there isn't, well, there really isn't any point getting up to the starting line. I might as well drop out of the race. And you know me--that ain't happening!  

Fair warning: I have many friends who do not stoop to using foul language, so I hope you will understand that I am a flawed human being and this is a stressful time and occasionally I will drop some F-bombs and S-bombs.  And maybe use some other words that aren't very nice, either.  Please forgive.  Because this will inevitably include those aforementioned random opinions and observations about life, you can slap me around if I veer into the above described nausea-inducing blog type territory.  Seriously.  Go ahead.  You can slap a chick with cancer.  I said so.

   Now that I'm finished with the disclaimer/preamble/avoidance stuff, it's back to our regularly scheduled program. 

   The surgeon wanted to expedite the process of doing several tests in a short amount of time, so I was admitted to a hospital Wednesday night to Friday morning to get a buttload of tests done in a day and a half. 

Following is for bio/med geeks...no shame...me, too (bet I'm the only one who still has my Visible Woman from the 1970s, so I'm the geekiest of all).  Skip all this if you want.

    I had a CT-guided needle biopsy of the tumor (ouch), I had a bronchoscopy to take samples of the tumor (snoozed out, thank goodness), (this part is super gross) the surgeon then somehow flushed the blech tumor site and that grody tumor water was sent to the lab as well, I had a CT of my brain (came out clear--of course, John couldn't resist, "Of course it's clear--they found NOTHING!"  Get it...oi.) and my liver (looks like regular "you've got some cysts like you get when you get older", no biggie).  
   I came home (and was inundated with love in myriad forms from many people and it makes me misty to even think about it), and Monday had the PET scan to look for Migratory Cancer Flight Paths around Planet Andrea. (I waited to see if any superpowers arose from my 20-hours of bodily radioactivity post-procedure...nothin'.  Yes, I'll admit I tried for a brief moment to levitate objects with my mind.  It was worth a shot.)
   So now we just wait for results.  We see an oncologist today, but I don't think there will be results.  We have an appointment scheduled with the surgeon on Thursday.
   I'm just trying to keep a positive attitude, avoid going crazy in the Spiral of Unknown Outcomes, and stay away from grim statistics!  You should too!