March 18: Forest Trail

Angela and I are just back from a walk in the woods.  Inspired by such a warm and beautiful day so early in the year we went further than I expected.  Soon after leaving we hung our sweaters and jackets on tree branches and continued in only t-shirts.  However slowly, we walked very triumphantly on the soaked trail.  Still how curious to find, now after many days of warm weather and much rain, patches of ice and snow persisting under our feet.

Angela's most recent MRI results are difficult to interpret.  Apprehensively we visited the neurosurgeon on Thursday to discuss the results.  It is hard to know whether it is a quirk of his personality, or the circumstance itself, that compels this gentleman to shrug his shoulders so often.  He brought the images up on the computer screen and compared the previous MRI to the most recent.  He showed us the space where the body of the first thoracic vertebra should be, and how there is now neither a bone nor a tumour there.  He showed us how the remaining bones and fragments "caved in," more or less, in a stable pattern.  By reference to some obvious kinks in the line of the remaining vertebrae, he reassured himself of the legitimacy of Angela's ongoing complaints of back pain.  "Yes," he said, "one can imagine at least a few nerve roots being squeezed along there."  Proudly, though, he demonstrated how the spinal cord itself is no longer pinched by a tumour.   Hesitatingly, but finally, he showed us a remaining mass, "perhaps 6 or 8 cubic centimetres in volume lateral to the cord, on the left."  "Yes," he said, "that's quite consistent with the numbness you describe in your left hand."

It was about this mass, of course, I felt we should speak.  Is it growing?  Might it still be shrinking?  Does it require further treatment?  To these questions, though, our proud and humble neurosurgeon, speechless, repeatedly shrugged his shoulders.   What he did know with certainty was that surgery, still, was ill advised.  It is simply not likely that with surgery he could get all of the tumour out.  Any surgery, furthermore, is likely to result in more pain and dysfunction rather than less.  "Best not to touch it," he said, and with this in mind he also counselled against physiotherapy for the time being.  "We still don't know if things will get better or worse on their own," he said, "better to watch and wait."

Our neurosurgeon wants to see Angela again in 3 months.  He is managing the spinal column.  He said it was for the oncologists to manage the tumour at this point.  In the meantime, remembering that Angela was "a professor of some type," and as though not to be completely useless, he wondered if hiring a transcriptionist would be helpful.

And so we turn to the oncologists.  Apprehensively, again, we make our next visit to Kingston tomorrow to see the radiation oncologist.

With signs of Spring our bear is coming out of hibernation.  It is no small thing that we managed a walk in the woods today.  It does not matter how slowly and cautiously we walked.  On Friday we managed a trip to the dentist in Toronto.  It does not matter how tiring it was.  Angela is convinced that she can drive safely at this point, if only a short distance.  Although it remains to be seen if she can make it to anywhere meaningful before her hands give out, we will soon give it a try.  She grows tired of isolation too.  Although she wonders how entertaining she can be for guests, with Spring, she hopes she will have more visits.  Winter, it seems, was for stones and orchids, spring, we hope, will be for visits with more friends.

We choose to find solace in the ice and snow on our forest trail.  Though persisting, it is surely melting.  We take hope, for the time being, in the idea that the tumour too might still be melting.  We will, my friends, find out soon enough.   Melting snow, so slow, can, it proves, be painful to chronicle.  We will, nevertheless, do our best.  We will, in continued gratitude, be in touch.