Well it is 04:33 on a clear (I can see the stars in the backyard) morning and I have woken up again at stupid o’clock with my brain having thoughts I needed to get out. Not racing, stressful thoughts like a mouse in wheel, more like yep I should do that, ohh yeah and that, hmm I wonder when Disney will make the next Star Wars Movie Trilogy ……….. you know active brain – not helpful to sleep but active. At least some parts of my body want to be active – my legs and feet sure as hell do not.

Sleep Patterns

On a positive note, I was that tired a couple of nights ago I went to bed at 21:00. That is 9pm in case you can not work that out – do not worry if you could not work it out, it is , 21 hours minus 12 hours of the morning which gives the hours and the minutes stay the same – ohh crap I have been home schooling the cheeky monkeys too much!!

I found (according the trusty fitbit) that I got more REM and Deep sleep than other nights. I had read somewhere (not going hunting now or this blog will take forever) that the best sleep is from 21:00 to 01:00. Hmmm lets check my stats. Ok the night before last was awesome with over 1 1/2 hours of REM and Deep sleep each. Wait, it is an anomaly, nope my REM and Deep are back to the usual last night. Perhaps I was just shattered that night!! More self-testing required.

What is Active

I suppose a positive is that at least something is active in this house at this time. The dog has just fallen back to sleep at my feet. The Mad Scientist is dreaming of who knows what, probably her next series of mad experiments. Two cheeky monkeys are fast asleep, restoring their energy for another onslaught of cheekiness and mayhem, as they are not at school due to the COVID-19 “issue”. Issue should be another word but I am not sure how to spell pan-damn-mick, I will have to ask Siri. Another thought for another day – who is Mick and why can he not find the damn pan. (Again cheeky monkeys home too much – all humour is now Dad jokes aimed at 9 year old boys)

Get to the Point

So what is on my mind, well lots and lots of stuff, but that is not what I am typing about today. I have been typing other times with other thoughts but not sure if those thoughts are ready yet. Even if those thoughts need publishing, ahh I will stop having a debate on this virtual paper now and get on with the point of today.

I have been for scans again, the Brain MRI was like normal but now with social distancing and a more thorough wipe down for the machine prior and after each scan. The noise was the same, the contrast dye was the same.

The PET/CT scan was a bit different, I was told to take my own blanket if I got cold (as I wear jeans I have to pull them down past my knees as I lay on the table), so a blanket not only keeps me warm, it keeps me modest and helps the staff resist my magnetic charm (ahh I should have done that joke for the MRI machine).

Anyway the results are in, and now thanks to modern technology, I can go into the patient portal and geek up my images before I get a phone call from the Teddy Bear (my Oncologist). *The image at the top is one of my images – I cut it off above the waste for modesty.

Ok so I could not see cancer stuff and the stuff I thought I could see, I could not work out if it was the same as previous scans…. But yes, the Teddy Bear confirmed that NED (No Evidence of Disease) is still staying with us YAY. NED is the long term house guest.

Why is this worthy of a blog?

The Mad Scientist and I have always been a bit concerned about the first NED results and they could be a bit of a false hope. The reason is simple, my cancer is incurable (with todays medical knowledge). The theory is that a cell or two is lurking somewhere but when you cut out all the cells you can see, it will take sometime for new clusters to form.

Are the drugs working, well the first scan might give you the sense it is, but maybe the time has not been long enough for those little suckers to form a new cluster large enough. Six months is a long time for these cells to take hold, so this scan is a welcome relief in the current world of craziness.

So the drugs are here to stay and keep NED as a house guest. The adjusted “new normal” due to side effects is turning into just everyday “normal” with some self testing going on to work out how to optimise the more clunky machine that is my body.