and then they call...

So the phone finally rang. Yeah the doctor's office kept me waiting all day. The nurse had to go track down some of my lab tests. She called me to tell me what the results were before the doctor has even seen them. So I have no medical interpretation of the results... I think I would have preferred her to tell me that she didn't have any news rather than tell me 1/2 an answer. And that's cause the answer's not the one I was hoping for. Sure my Thyroid and metabolic rate is in the normal range and my CBC (complete blood count) is mostly normal. My Hematocrit is a tiny bit low (35.9 when normal is above 36).

Let me preface the news with the statement that things really haven't changed since my last test in November. I had an abnormal is PAP with atypical cells of undetermined significance. In November the results also showed that I was HPV negative. At the time my doctor reassured me that abnormal cells are extremely common post-radiation and that he was not concerned. So this round of tests showed that the pesky abnormal cells are still there, but now I'm HPV positive. That brings two questions to mind: 1. is the change from HPV negative to positive of medical significance? and 2. is it likely that the cells would still exhibit "normal abnormal" characteristics 4 months after radiation? And by that I mean shouldn't they be "normal normal" by now??? Alas I have to wait until WEDNESDAY until the doctor can review my results and comment on them. He's in surgery on Tuesdays, you know, saving lives and all...

Not to worry though, I already spent 5 whole minutes doing internet searches to convince myself that "no, the results are not something to freak out about". But if you don't mind, I might just sit here and obsess for the next two days anyway.

out of the house and running...

Today I went for a "run". My running buddies (Christina, Erin, Jill, Alyssa - yeah team!!) all came out to plod along for about .6 miles before I had to walk. We finished the rest of the way around Greenlake (just shy of 3 miles) with lots of chatting and overall good spirits and just a little more jogging thrown in. Not what I would call a great run by pre-cancer standards, but it did leave me feeling much more energetic and refreshed. Also as Erin pointed out we were doing a heck of a lot more than probably 75% of the rest of the US population. My one titch of sadness was when I reset my garmin GPS watch and my last run was still on the display. My last run was just a few days before my hysterectomy. I knew I had cancer, but at that point it was just going to be a minor inconvenience, right? The recovery from surgery was expected to be 10-14 days with good outlook that there was nothing else needed. I wouldn't really be behind schedule for the Rock-N-Roll 1/2 marathon that we had signed up for. Minor inconvenience I had kept telling myself. It had been a great 6.51 miles where I was playing my part of drill sargent / general pain in the ass / running circles around my buddies saying really annoying things like "pick it up guys, I'm the one with cancer". Ok - I probably wasn't that annoying (at least I hope not), but I sure felt great at the time.

So back to today - the sun was out, it was warm and I was wearing my running skirt (Katarina helped make sure I was dressed "pretty" today). My biggest struggle was that I felt like I didn't have the lung capacity to keep running. I was just simply unable to keep going. On the way home I was telling Todd how disappointing that was for me. He reminded me that my red blood cell count would be on the decrease this week, and should be it's lowest point next week (which is when I go in for blood draws to make sure it's not too low). So not really a surprise to him that I was feeling like a fish out of water. But his cool observation was that if I can and do keep running during chemo then it's possible/likely that my body will be better equipped to handle runs when this whole thing is over because it will have adjusted and will handle oxygen more efficiently. Maybe that's the superpower he keeps talking about?

I think this also means that I'm really going to have to seriously consider going back to work. Or not... But that's another topic...