One step forward, one step back

Ok, so this morning I got wonderful news. Last week I had a head/orbital scan; my eyes were acting kind of funny, so my eye doctor - who is a specialist in Graves eye disease - had ordered one. He called me this morning to say that there was only a mild thickening of the eye muscles (quite common in people with Graves Disease) but that there was no evidence of tumors anywhere. Phew!

Now the bad part came at noon. I had to go for an MRI of the right hip and femur. I started having lower back, and hip pain back in December. If I stood up for more than 15 minutes, the pain was there, and if I wouldn't sit right away, it would get so bad I needed a cane to walk.

My oncologist ordered a lower spine MRI in February. That one came with only "mild hypertrophy of the facets" so a mild arthritis possibly. The pain though got worse and this time involving the right hip. So he ordered another MRI.

The problem was, the moment they made me lay down on the MRI "table" I knew I was in trouble. It was already hurting. When they said that it would take about an hour and a half for the scan, I started thinking that I wouldn't be able to bear it. And I was right. I tried to go as much as I could, and the pain was just getting worse and worse, until I just had to call them to take me out. If I could have been able to stand it for 10 more minutes, it would have been wonderful. But I couldn't. I had to be helped to get up, and then I needed a wheel chair to get back to my car.

Yes, I feel like crying right now. And you know what? I have the right to.

I hate cancer. I hate that it came in my life, interrupting it, when I was as happy as I haven't been in a long time. I hate the year and a half of hell I've been through with the surgeries and the chemotherapy. I hate all these lingering side effects I'm struggling with. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.