2 Hours and approximately 53 Minutes...

That is exactly how long in actual and realistic time as we know it that I spent today in a state of raw, white hot panic....
Just shy of 3 hours, but it felt more like 3 months...or better yet, 3 years...
Time has this strange way of distorting itself during times of crisis to the point where it is completely out of step with reality.
But as usual, I am getting ahead of myself...Well, to those of you who have happened to pop on to MPIP already, you may quite possibly have happened upon my post where I just may have jumped the gun a little too soon....
I have been having this pain in my right knee. That is, in addition to the pain in my ass (literally) or more specifically, very low left back and my right hip and upper thigh. My knee felt as though someone drilled a hole in it, shoved a time activated bomb of some variety and set it to explode at precisely 6:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time on Monday morning....and it hasn't stopped hurting since. Or quite possibly whaled away on it with a sledgehammer until the bone was completely pulped would be a not too far off description *a little melodrama for you, folks*.
Well, it didn't just start hurting out of the blue, to be honest. It was aching a bit for a few days now, but I figured that I was most likely putting a lot of extra strain on that joint since my hip has been so out of whack lately.
On Monday morning though, as I staggered out of bed in my usual half dead state upon waking, moaning "paaaaiiin meeeedddds...neeed paaiin..meeeds...nooooowwwww" in a slow zombie intonation, stars and fireworks exploded within my skull and on my inner eyelids with each step I took that put weight on that right knee...
That woke my ass up right quick.
I hit the deck.
Zombified moans became wails.
To say this is a major bummer would be grossly understating things, but it was, since I was honestly starting to feel a bit better in the pain department, at least in my lower back.

My husband went to our local Rite Aid on Monday afternoon, and perused the vast selection of walking aids and devices. He didn't ask me first, knowing my stubborn ass would blatantly refuse his offer to go pick out a cane for me...He just did it. I have been forever thankful since, 'cause DAMN, did I need it!

Anyway, by Tuesday, upon seeing the cane, which I must admit, I had to customize with butterfly stickers *did I ever mention before how corny I can be? Hell, I had to personalize it and make it fun somehow!*...but upon seeing the cane, my lurching walk, and my scrunched up face, along with my grunts, my radiation techs ordered me to tell the radiation onc right away about my knee pain. I wasn't doing myself any favors by trying to suck it up and be tough...just being a stubborn ass, as I have known to be....quite frequently, as a matter of fact.

When the doc popped in to see me and ask what was up, I told him my knee hurt like a MOFO. *not exactly what I said, but so what*...He ordered an X-ray with a STAT wet reading to be sent immediately to him. He told me that even if the X-ray showed nothing, he may want to order an MRI just to check the marrow out and make sure it was okay.

Sooo, today I go in for my usual rad treatment, and the nurse to my rad oncologist comes in after I have gowned up to tell me that the X-ray found something...A Lytic lesion *then all I heard was something resembling the voice of the teacher in those old Peanuts cartoons*.."mwah, mwaah mwaaaaah, mwah."

I somehow managed to garble some most likely borderline indecipherable gibberish that she somehow must have understood to be a question: "So, is this another bone met?"

YES.

She was already telling me that they were gearing up to start another CT simulation and tattoo session for this new spot, along with setting up radiation treatments for my knee now.

That HOLYSHITHOLYSHITHOLYSHITFUCKER ticker tape thingy started to run constantly through my brain. A roar that drowned out all other thought and reason. How could this be? Nothing, I mean NOTHING had shown up in my right knee on that PET/CT fusion test that I just had done on March 16th. That means this stinker showed up in less than a month. That was when I came unglued even further.

Sooo, immediately after the radiation treatment was done, I was sent to the radiology department for a CT scan (without contrast since it was on such short notice) to get a clearer picture of this thing.

Don't ask me how I managed to drive myself home. Somehow, I did.

I got this news around 12:00 this afternoon. By 2:53, the nurse already had the CT results. Approximately 2 hours and 53 minutes, such a short timeframe by most standards, dragged by like a virtual eternity to me today...All hell broke loose in my brain. The tears I had cried up until today were only a slow leak compared to what I let rip today. The damn broke. For just short of three hours today, I was sure I was screwed...especially since the thing seemed to grow at record pace. My brain was such a fried, practically obliterated and totally whacked mess, I don't even remember much of anything coherent that crossed my mind now...Just that utter and complete panic.

But her call to say the CT was clear...That was the happiest I have been in a long LONG time. To say I felt like I hit the lottery would not be an exaggeration...I mean it...I truly did feel that way. I have been skipping around ever since.

Weeeell, okay, maybe not literally, since I got a semi bummed and weakened left leg and a hurtin' like a bitch most of the time right one, skipping is a physical impossibility for me right about now...but at least I was skipping in my brain.

Let me just say that I felt at the very least like a complete boneheaded idiota and moron for spazzing out times 100 and posting on the MPIP before I had the CT result to back up the X-ray...But deluded or not, I was under the total impression that an X-ray is one of the last tests that will turn up a tumor since it is the least sensitive...So if the X-ray found it, then I was convinced I was f**ked.

The nurse did tell me that my radiation onc will go over with me in more detail tomorrow what exactly the CT did show, and why it was possibe the x-ray was showing something, when in fact, the CT did not...But as far as I'm concerned, whatever it is, I don't rightly care too much...AT LEAST IT ISN'T MELANOMA!!

Sweet relief.

And a quick, hard and fast blow to my head to get me out of that totally negative mood I had been in the last couple of days. Nothing like being shown, blaring and blasting smack in my face, that things could always be worse to get my head screwed back on straight and think more positive.

A shitty way to be taught that lesson, to be scared shitless and totally out of your wits, but effective...very.