My shoulder hurts. It’s been hurting for a long while, but lately seems worse.
Flashback: 2023 — a PET scan shows cancer in my shoulder, among other places. The cancer is advanced enough that I will never be rid of it.
Now: I mention my shoulder pain to my cancer team and they set up an MRI to see if the cancer was waking up. There is a central pillar to my day-to-day life: as long as PSA in my body is undetectable, my cancer is dormant. “Well, most of the time,” my doctor said. I have to tell you, friends, that most and all are not the same.
Flashback: 2020 — I spill off my bike at high (for me) speed, and my shoulder takes the worst of it. X-rays ensue, damage is noted.
Most of the time. I had really invested in that number. I am still invested in that number. But confidence in my ability to be alive a couple of years from now is undermined. Which, in retrospect, is obvious. There is no single number that holds all the magic.
Now: I lie in the magic magnetic tube, advised not to take deep breaths, the thought of which makes want to fill my lungs. I have ear protection; it is loud in there. BRRR BUZZZ GRRR. The progression and interposition of the pitches of the loud buzzing noises are governed by mathematics, which makes them seem almost musical. The Laurie Anderson/Brian Eno tube of experience, featuring Philip Glass. It helps me keep still, listening to the sounds as music, mesmerizing, and I began to understand the patterns of the sounds as the scans progressed. Philip Glass.
Flashback: 2021? — I’m on the elliptical and when I’m pulling with my right arm I hear a pop and my shoulder hurts like hell. I’ve had the bicycle crash, but I don’t connect it with this pain. The activity was so normal, so innocuous, that I discount the idea that I might just have done serious damage. I’ll be walking like a t-rex for a bit but things will get better. Eventually. But they never did. In the meantime I have learned to use my left arm to support my right when lifting is required. You wouldn’t even notice me doing it.
Now: My cancer team is all over the MRI results. The good news: no evidence the cancer is causing trouble. In the opinion of the radiologist, my pain is not because of cancer but because my shoulder is (I’m paraphrasing) seriously fucked up.
Full tear of the ligament used to raise my arm. Just not connected anymore. Partial tears all around it. One of the biceps ligaments undetectable, detached and presumed atrophied. Scar tissue becoming a problem, arthritis setting in.
NOT cancer. Not cancer. This new uncertainty injected into my life has not manifested. My shoulder’s fucked up is all. It’s a structural issue, and nothing more.
Jesus, Jerry! Or should you be Jesus-Jerry? Thank goodness that the cancer had not awakened in that shoulder area. Can you imagine if Jesus, a carpenter, had your shoulder? Well, no problemo. He’d cure himself! And then he’d start hammering away at something. Can WE do that? Or at least keep things in stasis?
I had a recent MRI experience, too. I now have to have my pancreatic duct MRI’d every year. It had been getting the procedure every two years for the past 14 years. I have a cyst in my pancreatic duct. This is the type of cyst that can turn into cancer…and by the time it is detected, it is too late, usually. My previous MRI was in late January. My gastro doc said, “Get another one in late summer, as your cyst is growing.” Yeah, these tiny cysts can grow into cancer. Consequently, I was dreading the results of the MRI I had in early August, just a couple weeks ago from today. Not the MRI itself. That was a breeze. Took 45 minutes, BUT I got to wear mirror glasses and watch serene scenes of water lapping at a lake shoreline, or clouds scudding across mountain tops. And listen to classical music “Breathe in, hold for 60 seconds (bang, bang…) Breathe out.” And so on. You know the drill. Two hours after I got home, the report from the radiologist was on Epic, the medical communication system. The radiologist said that the cyst had actually DECREASED in size, and that it looked like the pancreatic duct was COMMUNICATING with the cyst! I surmised that the duct was telling the cyst to stop growing, for heaven’s sake! In my visit with my gastroenterologist today, she agreed. So, I get it that your cancer is dormant “most of the time.” We wish it could be all of the time. Or even better, just disappear, scram, sayonara! We do what we can with what we have. And thank goodness for MRI machines! Take care, Jerry. Know that people love you lots. Don’t turn into a T-Rex! Much love, Aunt Marie
Modern imaging, starting with ultrasound and ending (for now) with PET is transforming medicine in the best possible way. Serious science fiction shit.
Glad the duct is telling the cyst to calm its shit down. Checks and balances and whatnot.
I hope you are all right. I love you too.
Thanks, Jerry. I am all right. Also gearing up for my cataract surgeries. One in September and one in October. Pepperell Barbara Seeger will be helping me with that, thank goodness.
And maybe I will be able to see colors better after it is all over. That would be nice, since I am enjoying a renewed avocation of drawing and painting.
Jerry, I’m hoping your shoulder calms down soon, if possible, and won’t interfere with your writing very much. I know you love writing. I love reading it.
Love, Aunt Marie