Brain Scan

I’m happy to report that my brain MRI came back normal. It was the first time a scan came back normal since all this started. I am very relieved, although slightly disappointed that I have nothing on which to blame my emotional outbursts or random lapses of judgement. If I miss my exit to get home or start yelling at the neighbor’s dog for no apparent reason, I don’t have an invasive tumor to blame. It’s just me being me.

The doctor at the Mayo Clinic is the one who recommended I get an MRI of my brain. And she did so very casually, I might add. At the end of our appointment, as Jordan and I were gathering our stuff to leave, she happened to mention that the type of cancer I have often makes its way to the brain, so it would be good to have some imaging done. It was such a throwaway remark, it almost didn’t register. She might as well have been telling us to grab an umbrella because it was raining out.

Thanks to this off-the-cuff comment, what was otherwise a very positive appointment became the source of persistent worry that lasted for weeks. Every headache, every pang of fatigue, every stupid little mistake I made, every moment of forgetfulness, every time I had to squint to read something… I was left wondering if the cancer had now spread to my brain.

I should mention that the doctor (upon seeing the panic well up in my eyes) clarified that it was “highly unlikely” that the cancer had spread to my brain. If it had, I would be showing symptoms…

The practical part of me tried to believe her. If the cancer had spread to my brain, certainly I would be speaking Mandarin or something a little more alarming than a pesky headache. But the less secure part of me, the scared little kid part, interpreted “highly unlikely” as “not impossible.” The thread of possibility was enough of an earworm to eat away at me. After all, the doctors also said that my cancer being stage four was “highly unlikely.” So I suppose I’ve developed some skepticism towards the imperfect field of medical statistics.  

Fortunately, in this case, we finally got a point in the win column. An especially good thing because I can tell as I write this that I’m becoming a little cynical. And no one likes a cynical cancer patient.

So now that this scan is behind me, I look towards the next (a PET scan on November 3^rd). I suppose this will be part of the new normal… living scan to scan. A new kind of mile marker, like birthdays or anniversaries. If I can keep the fear at bay, it’s not the worst way to get through this journey. It gives me some definition in a sea of unknowns—tangible checkpoints versus the one big scary finish line of death. Putting these dates on a beautifully color-coded calendar gives me a sense of control over an otherwise uncontrollable existence.

None of us knows how long we’re going to live. It’s an ambiguous line for everyone. Even I can’t say for certain that it will be the cancer that kills me. Who knows? Maybe a couple weeks from now I’ll absent-mindedly walk into traffic while looking up “how to make my toddler stop licking his baby brother” on my phone and an old man on a rascal will come plowing into me, bringing me to my tragic yet humorous end.

Could that happen? It’s possible. “Highly unlikely.” But it’s possible.