Perspectives change...

[richiebee]

Just over two weeks ago, the bottom fell out of my life. My wife found out she had cancer. All she had to go on was a 3 minute consultation - a diagnosis, and size of tumour. Now, you go and Google Liposarcoma and figure out her chances of survival with a 15cm tumour...

We've been going out of our fucking minds for the last two weeks.

Liposarcoma (in case you're not going to Google it), kills more than half the people that get it within five years of diagnosis. It usually requires very specialized treatment to avoid cancer cells getting into the blood stream. It's virtually immune to chemotherapy, so once it gets into the blood, that's pretty much it. Game over. There are a couple of centres in the whole of Canada that deal with it, the nearest one to here being a couple of thousand km's away in Toronto.

So, the local cancer specialist it turns out used to be a surgeon at one of these centres, and tells my wife - "this thing ain't going to kill you". Something that the internet doesn't seem to tell you is that there are incredibly different strains of this rare cancer, which at one end kills almost everyone who gets it, and at the other kills virtually no one. As it turns out, she's at the "almost no one" end being practically superficial and certainly not affecting any of her major organs.

So, from hearing she had cancer, to expecting the worst, to celebrating the best... this has been a weird few weeks. She still has cancer, still faces a major operation in the next few weeks, and some significant recovery. But she's going to be okay. And that's worth celebrating.

[.tom]

.......wow