safe and sound

We are home, happy and tired.

Drove over 1,000km yesterday (with two kids in the backseat, don't forget). We made the decision (with full consensus) to skip dinner and keep driving after crossing the border (our easiest crossing ever, as the border guard proved susceptible to D.'s considerable charms).

We all slept in this morning and my spouse and I have spent the day in a stupor. I was too tired, in fact, to worry too much about my ultrasound results. This was a good thing, as my anxiety had been slowly building all week, and had been at times quite overwhelming.

In the end, my oncologist announced that my tumours appear to have stabilized. He claims to be very happy with this result (although I know that he had initially hoped that my intense reaction to Herceptin meant that there would be progress by now). I am a bit disappointed but mostly I am relieved. After all, I feel pretty good right now; the status quo doesn't feel like a bad thing.

I was so relieved in fact, that I didn't even complain when the nurse doing blood work had to try three times to get the needle into my port or when she left me holding the syringe full of blood to go get some gauze to mop up the blood oozing down my chest. Pain and discomfort, it appears, are relative things.