Here's the skinny

 

Who knew the "Leo moon" had anything to do with it, but I definitely get what my horoscope for today is saying about wanting to jump out of my skin. That's exactly how I feel as the skin across my abdomen, riddled with five surgical incisions, prickles with the itchy pain that marks the healing process. 

Comfort really is "hard to embody" right now, but that's about the only bad news.

The good news is what came out of appointments this week, first with my surgeon and then with my medical oncologist. The surgeon had just received the pathology report minutes before he entered the room where TC and I waited, and the results were written clearly in the wide grin the doctor wore.

In my lymph nodes, in margins around the lower right lung lobe that was removed and in a biopsy of the phrenic nerve that the tumor had been snuggled up against, the findings were all the same: Negative for sarcoma. 

The results could not have been better. It was what we and our friends and loved ones had been praying for. "Negative" never sounded so sweet.

My oncologist was also smiling as he walked into the exam room the next day. The negative pathology report is a strong factor in his recommendation -- for the time being anyway -- against embarking on a follow-up regimen of chemotherapy. 

Also weighing in favor of no chemo, the doctor explained, is the 12-year span between my last previous incidence of sarcoma in 2011 and the recent metastasis in my lung. Usually, going three years past an occurrence is the goal survivors shoot for, and I had quadrupled that. 

We're still waiting on results of some cutting-edge, customized blood tests that will provide more information to consider for or against chemotherapy, so the treatment protocol could still change in coming weeks. Either way, CT scans in three months will look for suspicious developments.

For now, my job is to take it slow and remind myself that the persistent painful tingling across the surgical field is just part of healing. Ditto for the frequent small coughs that interrupt my attempts to utter more than a few words at a time. Give it six weeks, the surgeon says, for full recovery.

My skin will feel more inhabitable and my lungs will allow me to carry on a conversation soon enough.