news: not-so-good, and more than good

I had my appointment with my wonderful endocrinologist today, Dr. A. 

First, the not-so-good news: my status has been revised from "cancer free" to "indeterminate."  This does not surprise me in the least, so it's not upsetting.  This is partially good news, though, because this new status is the result of a new, highly sensitive test for the thyroid cancer tumor marker.  This is a blood test that doesn't require any special preparation, so there's no reason, say, for a really expensive and inconvenient protocol that drags me to a hospital four days out of five prior to testing for this same thing.

Anyway, the test result should have been zero or undetectable, and instead it was 0.3. (I can't remember the units, and it doesn't really matter -- although my students would be jumping all over me if they saw me saying that!  I don't let them get away with that!)  Since this is a new test, I couldn't really assess whether 0.3 whatevers was something I should worry about, but Dr. A confirmed that 0.3 is indeed a very small number, and given that there is no physical evidence of disease, we're just going to do ultrasounds and blood tests every 6 months and that should do it, unless something changes.  Ultrasounds are cheap and painless.  Blood tests aren't that painful.  Both of them are infinitely preferable to Thyrogen-stimulated RAI whole body scans, low-iodine diets, CT scans, PET/CT scans, or MRIs.  I'm looking forward to a less-medicalized and much less expensive future.

Speaking of MRIs, the most recent one (last Monday), was perfect and -- here's the really good news -- I don't have to have another one for two years!  Yay!

For all that I've written about it, my appointment was the smallest part of today, DS1's birthday.  I don't really understand how I am old enough to have a 23-year-old, but that's the reality.  We cooked his dinner together: surf and turf (strip steak cooked by DS1, scallops and shrimp by me), spicy delicata squash "fries", and salad, with brownie cake with the best chocolate frosting ever* for his birthday "cake".  I was in the kitchen from just after 4 when I got home from my appointment until nearly 8 o'clock when we finished up dessert. I was wiped out afterwards but it was time so well spent!

After dinner, the boys all disappeared upstairs as they usually do, and I called DD and caught up with her for a delightful hour.  She is having a great time at school.  It's her second semester of junior year and she is really enjoying her classes, which include studying anthropology and the human micro-biome.  I often worry about what's she's doing up there, but today she looked and sounded wonderful. (We face-timed so she could join us in singing Happy Birthday to DS1.  He tolerated it well -- we sound terrible, mostly because everyone else makes no effort to sing on key!)

Good news, very good food, and wonderful family time.  An excellent day.

* Best Chocolate Frosting Ever:
This recipe was hiding in my Fannie Farmer Baking Book all these years and I somehow recently discovered it:  Melt 6 ounces of chocolate chips; stir in one half-cup of sour cream and a pinch of salt.  That's it.  Spectacular.  I use Trader Joe's Pound Plus Belgian Dark Chocolate when I'm out of chocolate chips, weighing out the 6 ounces, and it's just the best.  It doesn't make too much, enough to frost the top of an 8-inch cake,but that's OK.  There was a little left over after frosting the brownies. (Trader Joe's Truffle Brownie mix, made with an entire stick of butter!  Highly recommended.)