MRI Results

Wednesday morning, Dr. So swept into the room we were waiting in, big smile spreading his chubby cheeks, and said, "Great news!"

He handed the radiology report to Mark to read for himself, but he developed a sudden, very damp, optical condition. Strangely, the same thing happened to me, so Dr. So read out this beautiful stanza himself:

"Status post bilateral mastectomy and reconstruction, no MRI evidence for malignancy."

With the added treat of " . . . essentially no parenchyma [that's breast tissue] identified," that means that there's essentially no place for any new breast cancer to grow.

I don't know that I can put into words what this means to us yet. Even though all of my doctors suspected this was my outcome, I never really felt safe until now. I had a nice chance to talk to Dr. So about this, and he totally understood. I was spending so much time trying not to let this suspicion and unease drive me crazy. I don't have to do that anymore. I don't have to lay awake at night, charting my lymphs. As Mark pointed out, I can pop in a Jane Austen movie, or read my favorite Kipling or Hemingway, not because I'm semi-desperately needing to be soothed at night, but just because I feel like Austen or Kipling or Hemingway.

It means a lot, in essence. I'll work on figuring it all out, in between dancing, giggling, and smooching Mark, in my uncancery future.