Daily Notes- May 7th

The Daily Walk.  This much repaired bridge over swampy waters is perhaps my favorite part.  Never sure I am not going to fall into the water.  G is in the red jacket.  Riley directly in front of him.  I'm standing at the opposite end of the bridge--taking the picture, pocketing the camera (phone) and then stepping foot onto the boards. The woods are unkept and boggy even on a good day. Not like the woods behind my house in Germany.  It's like the German walkers swept the paths every morning.  No sticks or leaves on the foot paths.  Fallen trees-cut into cordage, piled neatly and carried away by people needing wood.

Today was the much worried about visit to the doctor--the only one--who could read the PET scan results.  For G.  We had heard rumblings from other doctor's offices of the "C" word.  No one would tell us why they were thinking these thoughts.  The Ears Nose Throat doctor will explain everything.

So we get to the appointment and first thing the very nice doctor says is "why are you here?"  We tell him.  He sighs, rubs his head-and says "would've been nice of the doctor ordering the test to let me know".  He looked at the scans.  He looked at G's throat.  He looked at the place where G used to have a tonsil.  He even showed us the entire film of the PET scan.  I pointed to others areas that were bright dots--and asked "why not these spots" and the doctor said-"yes, you would think those would have arrows".  But they didn't.  Only the non-tonsil spot.  Nothing.  It was and always was--nothing.

We discovered that there are a number of places on scans that light up because of high glucose usage--like the brain, heart, liver etc..  Mostly the PET is used to see if a "known" cancer is growing or better--not growing- it's pretty worthless finding cancers.

We had a celebratory luncheon.  The Doctor we saw today is going to "have words" with the doctor that referred us.  We are going to have one word with the same doctor--goodbye.  I really would like to add a second word or two.  I like my dad's favorite--Asshole.

It's cold and raining today.  Yesterday was hot and sunny.  G found another tick this morning.  Now there are two pasted on the May calendar page --with scotch tape.  We, here in Maine--keep our found ticks-folded into scotch tape and dated.  In case we get sick.  They test the taped up ticks for Lyme.