Just got back from the hospital for Armand’s quarterly scans, in which we run through a battery of tests to see if the cancer is coming back. So far, everything is back but some of the chemical testing, and shows Armand to be completely clean. Always happy to get that confirmed :).

Since I’m trying to assemble an early-days-of-cancer scrapbook, I asked for a copy of the CT scan from that first day, the one that confirmed all this was going on. It’s a bit eerie to look at it again, a mass of gray and white and black, and then nothing but a great big white blotch representing the tumor that had taken over everything. The really weird part — which I didn’t fully grasp first time around — was that all his abdominal organs were squeezed and squished down to one quadrant of his abdomen. Sometimes I think to myself that I mentally exaggerate the size as the years go by. Turns out I do not — it is, in fact, BIGGER than I remember. Looking again at those scans, I find it hard to believe any human could have so huge a growth around so many vital organs and remain alive. It’s a testament to modern medicine and borderline-supernatural that he still is.

More pics of that later, once I figure out how to upload them to my own drive. In the meantime, to counteract all the heavy stuff, here’s a photo of tumor-free Armand smiling on his swingset today, after the scans were done. He always wears his Mr. Bones skeleton shirt to scan days. The oncology and medical imaging staff members find this hilarious.

~ by poguesrun on April 18, 2011.