Will the groundhog see his shadow?

That's kind of how I view the results of this latest PET scan. Based on the results (which I should get today or tomorrow), I'll either continue with the chemo, or I get to stop, at long last.

I'm not even totally sure what the doctor is looking for this round. Have you ever seen a PET scan image? All these amorphous blobs of different colors, all these insane cross-sectional layers...they could be showing me the scan of a baboon and I'd believe it was my body.

Anyway, I think this scan has something to do with the scar tissue they found on my last, all-clear PET scan, in June. If the size of the scar tissue has LESSENED this time, he'll assume the chemo is still working, and I continue on. Like maybe there were still a few, undetectable cancer cells hiding in that scar tissue, and they're still getting killed off.

But as I told my family today, either way, it will be good news. I mean, think of it. One way, I'm done with chemo. PARTY. The other way, it means the chemo was still doing me good and he wants me to do more. If I need more, better to have it now than to start up again in 6 months. Ick. I want to have a normal Christmas.

In some ways, an oncologist is a bit of an artist. And I am his watercolor paint. Right now a bit muddy and washed out. But I got potential, baby!

So, either way, it'll be ok. It'll all be done in a few months, right? Sometimes, in moments like this, I give myself a little slap (no I don't) and remember that I am actually quite lucky. When Neil and I started this process back in January, we were told that "BEST case scenario, the chemo COULD make the cancer totally go away, all on its own, no surgery." We looked wistfully at each other. Oh, wouldn't THAT be something. In our dreams! It was one of many possible outcomes, and the odds weren't with us. But IT HAPPENED!

To put it mildly, we have reason to be thankful.