two down, one to go

My whole body scan was negative.  Completely clear, which was very nice after last year's "blip" and the continuous annoying pain I'm having in my collar bone (and now, up under my right ear).  Apparently, whatever is going on, it's not thyroid-cancer-y enough to show up on the WBS even after nearly three weeks of the low iodine diet.

Last week was so horrible I'm amazed I survived it.  Mom's death was the worst of it, but I had commitments, both personal and professional, that I had to keep.  Driving up to the hospital in Phoenix 4 out of 5 days was just exhausting, especially as most of the trips were in the after school, and therefore rush hour, time frame. But Thursday, my day off from the hospital, was parent-teacher conferences, from 8AM to 6PM and I barely had time to breathe.  We had an hour for lunch from noon to one, and really needed it.  The one good thing I can say is, the day flew by, and no one came in with a grievance.  I managed.

Yesterday I caught up on grading and lesson planning while doing my colonoscopy prep.  Ten years has done a lot of good in the colonoscopy world, as the prep last time literally made me sick and I was completely miserable.  This year's prep was much more manageable, and although I did have to use the bathroom sometimes every 10 minutes, I didn't have the horrible abdominal pains I had last time.   This morning my procedure was scheduled for 6:30am and DH was driving me home by 7:15.  Everything in there is completely healthy, no issues at all.  Once home,  I slept until 11, and then spent some time cleaning and a whole huge chunk of time pulling photos for a memory board for my mother's services on Saturday.

So now that's done, I have tomorrow clear to catch up on my grad school work.  I have several articles to read and I have to start mapping my literature review.  I have already done preliminary research and have a ton of articles to go through.  It would be better to take my time going through it, but I'm scheduled to present my work-in-progress on Wednesday, and I don't want to put it off.

And I can't actually plan on doing any productive work on Wednesday, since I'll be up at Banner M. D. Anderson for bloodwork, CT scans, and then an appointment with my head and neck cancer guy there to see what he thinks is going on.  Maybe this thing in my collarbone/shoulder is just scar tissue, and maybe the problem in my right neck is just muscle spasms or a reactive node... see, I can come up with plausible explanations for just about anything.  Still, I'd like that pain to stop.  I'm really, really hoping it's not a recurrence that needs action, and I'm vaguely, minimally encouraged by the negative WBS.  WBS are not the best for picking up residual cancer in lymph nodes, as my surgeon at MDA in Houston demonstrated.  Well.  By this time on Wednesday, I'll know.