The Upside of Cancer

Since the initial cancer diagnosis, I have never doubted that we would get it all. This was one of those nuisance things, not something that could potentially be fatal.

I was driving to a client site with a colleague and said to him, “The upside of cancer…” He paused my thought to say, “You are the only person I know that can say ‘the upside of cancer’ and it be believable.”

We’ll need to back up for just a moment. When the soft tissue cancer was found in my back, I was waiting to begin radiation to remove the remnants of a brain tumor. The last surgery I’d had on the brain tumor had left half of my face paralyzed due to nerve damage and we were allowing time for that to heal as much as possible before starting radiation.

The healing from the facial paralysis had slowed down and I was getting antsy to be done with treatment. I was thinking it was time to move forward with the radiation. The concern has been that once we start the radiation, that will be the end of the healing of the paralysis.

Malignant cancer trumps benign brain tumor. The brain tumor treatment would be put on hold until the cancer was gone. As of Feb 28 it is gone and my face has healed more than my doctors or I had ever thought possible. Now, we’re just giving my back a little time to heal, then we shall start talking next steps.

Dr Bea