Meeting with a medical oncologist is scheduled for HALLOWEEN!  So guess who shows up to talk to me about the results of my Oncyl DX test and the next steps in the erasing of my cancer…Willy Wonka himself!  Are you thinking what I’im thinking?  Totally surreal, to say the least!  Literally, for one hour I sat across the coffee table from this looney, elf-ish looking grown up!  I had looked online to see what Dr. Anderson looked like and read his biography before making the appointment.  So for the entire time, as I was concentrating on words like chemotherapy, danger of spreading, estrogen, testosterone, lymphnodes, adrenal glands, risks of hormone therapy — I kept looking into his eyes and focusing on his character, trying to find the real doctor inside.  I knew what I was looking for — a middle-aged, bald guy — but for the life of me, I could NOT find him!  At times, I even burst into giggles, just watching him project his medical theories!

At the end of it all, here are the results:  The test proved somewhat inconclusive, yet it is totally conclusive in my  mind.  The range on an Oncyl DX test goes from zero (no chemotherapy) to 100 (for sure chemotherapy).  My number is a 23, which at first when he said it, I jumped up and was excited that I had passed the test with flying colors.  Not so fast girl — 23 is actually in the middle, gray area of the results.  16 would have been optimum in saying that almost totally without a shadow of a doubt, no chemotherapy needed.  Turns out there’s lots of grey area in medicine!  I always knew that, but now I am reminded.  So, it’s really my decision.  Well, I guess that makes sense — it is my body and my life!  So I have decided to do hormone therapy for 30 days and am going today to sign up with a clinical trial group called the Alliance Trial.  I’ll let you know if I am randomized for either the pill, the injection or both.  Tomorrow I begin the day at 7:30 AM with a baseline biopsy and then another one in 30 days — this will determine that the hormone therapy is working and that the tumor is shrinking.  And if this happens, then it shows the doctors that if there is anything else that has microscopically escaped into my body, that the results are the same on those nasty little cells.

I feel like I won the Golden Ticket!  I plan to enjoy the wedding of my BFF’s daughter in Chicago and then spend a cozy, joyful, free-spirited Thanksgiving in Indy with family.  All of us Butlers in one place again!  I don’t have to think about any of this annoying cancer stuff after this week.  I just have to do the process and BELIEVE in the results.  I believe!  I believe!  I believe!