Who me? What?

All my life I've prided myself on my naturally good health. People around me came down with colds or flu. I took care of them. I used an exercise bike and went to pilates. Had plenty of energy.

Then occasional bouts of serious diarrhea started to hit me several times a month. This is an inconvenient malady for an active person, so I went to see my doctor just after the holidays. He thought maybe gall bladder and sent me for a sonogram. Turned out to be a humbling experience...

The sonogram image was stunning. Nothing worth noting about the gall bladder but the liver looked quite interesting. There were three big yellow circles on it. Two huge and one smaller (looked like party balloons) and a host of bright speckles, like stars, all over the rest of the liver. Hmmm. Even though my first thought was of three moons on a starry sky, I realized this image was of my insides.

The diagonis was metastatic neuroendorine liver tumors (NET). My mind couldn't take it all in. Tumors, okay. I knew more or less what a tumor was. Neuroendorcrine was a new word but I acepted it and decided to look it up later. It was the word metastatic that my mind refused to recognize or accept as relevant.

Next step - tests. Many of them. One of the earliest was a liver biopsy. I'd begun to acknowledge results so I expected it would say that the tumors were cancerous. The doctor who called to give Cathy the results said "You get old. You get cancer. You deal with it." We liked her straightforward approach. She answers questions directly and promptly. She listens well. So we are glad she is our de facto team leader - even though there is another designated chief who appears once in a while to ask how I'm doing and then thankfully, wanders off.