Buckle Your Seat Belts, and Promise Not to Kwy!

No matter what I say here, you KNOW there is always hope, always the quirky miracle, always the better turnout than the medics told you about, always the surprise good thing that you didn't see coming.

Hold on to THAT while I tell you what happened today.

The Oncologist (in agreement with the main Oncologist at Wake Forest Hospital 2 hours away), decided to break out the news, unedited and unafraid.

Unafraid, apparently, of us both fainting away onto the floor when she said it. Which we almost did.

Here it is: Bill's cancer is now considered completely incurable, and he will not beat it, and the only thing they can do now is give him random-guess selections of chemo meds in the hope that these random stabs in the dark at chemo choices might--MIGHT--slow down the spread of the cancer and extend his life. (Reason they have to guess blindly: Type 3, Stage IV, highest level aggression bladder cancer has never been cured, and no studies have been done, because the disease, once metastasized, is always considered incurable.)

What are the chances that chemo is going to hurt this cancer?

At best, 50-50, she said.

And if the chemo doesn't beat the cancer?

No matter what the upcoming scan shows, Bill has to have 12 more weeks (yeah, three MONTHS) of (ready?) ONCE A WEEK chemo (no more red devil, at least; it will be carboplatin and taxol).

OR!

He can give up, enter Hospice care at home, and live out his life without the illnesses of chemo, under complete pain control and around-the-clock care at home.

BUT!

Hospice accepts only patients who have 6 months or fewer to live. So the way *I* do the math (pessimistically), this adds up to: At best, a 50-50 chance that Bill has 6 months to live, BUT ALSO the same 50-50 chance that he could last even some "years."

I said, "Ten years?"

She said, "No. But if the chemo is working, it could be years rather than months. There is no way to guess closer than that, until we see the scan, which I'm setting up for you today." (The scan will probably happen in the next couple of weeks. I hope I'm on intravenous sedatives or chloroform when the results from that scan are delivered to us! Oh Lordie!)

So, Bill gets (we didn't know this) ONE MORE dose of red devil next week, THEN goes to Winston for the scan, with results within one hour (!) and  depending on those results, he can decide between chemo and Hospice.

REACTIONS:
I've been reading things that have these zero-chance prognosis statements for  years now, but not telling Bill. Bill happily thought he was headed for a cure. So he was absolutely SHOCKED. I could say "devastated" and not be far off base. I, however, had not had any professional put it so bluntly, and out of nowhere. We thought we were just getting a blood test, not a blooming LIFE EXPECTANCY STATEMENT today.

Wow, sort of a slam in the head with a two by four.

So we came home VERY QUIETLY. At first, we were both in twilight zone, shock. Then we started talking, and even joking, and now we are deciding his strategy for what to do with the rest of his life. He wants to see his beloved and deeply missed Baraboo, Wisconsin, friends once more (Kenny, you most of all); wants to take his daughter to Vermont to see her grandparents' graves; and he wants to see the Pacific ocean just once in his life. (This saddens me. Look how little he wants.)

He also said this, and I know a lot of you will love this: "The one thing the oncologists aren't putting into the equation is the power of prayer."

That's my boy! Always optimistic!

We will definitely post on the same day that we get ANY information from here on out.

Thank you all for standing with us during this long and crazy rodeo. Bill isn't ABOUT to give up wrassling this ole bull.