You know that moment when you realise you’ve been holding your breath? Yup well today that’s me. Today I found out I’m stable. The one word that you covet when you have stage four cancer. Stable. A fairly unassuming word, but, wow, I can breathe easy again.
Yes I still have cancer, but then I’m never going to not have cancer. There’s that time before cancer (BC if you will) and then there’s now. Once cancer metastasises it will never go away. I call it the self-replicating glitter theory. Cancer by definition is a collection of cells that grows unabated (ie self-replicating). Prior to stage four the glitter is contained, say in a zip lock bag in the craft drawer. But once it gets to stage four it’s like that bag has been opened and the glitter is everywhere. And if you’ve ever let glitter into your house you know how it can turn up anywhere. Now imagine that glitter self-replicates. No matter how much vacuuming you do it will just keep turning up stuck to your eyebrow (usually in a serious work meeting). Left to its own devices you’ll eventually drown in a house full of self-replicating glitter.
And even though I knew that the chemo had done a good job of blasting my glitter, and that the results for Ibrance are remarkable (despite what Pharmac would have you believe), I have been waiting, not brilliantly well!, for my latest test results. So when the report came through with the word stable on it, I suddenly realised how stressed I’d been.
This is a game I’ll be playing every three months from now on. It’s bitter sweet. As I got my stable result, so a friend got the news that hers had progressed. My cancer might be stable but some days I wonder about the rest of me! It’s so easy to catastrophise and live glass half (mostly) empty. But seeing it written on a page, going through my scans with my oncologist and seeing for myself that there has been no progression, i can almost believe that it’s true. So tonight I’ll have a glass of Chardonnay and hug my kids. And look forward to doing it again in three months.