Hello friend!

I hope you’ve found my blog at a moment when it was helpful. This cancer journey has certainly been a memorable journey for me even though the details are hazy. And that’s fine.

I had another shoulder MRI yesterday as part of keeping tabs on things. This afternoon I got to have a conversation with a PA in the breast surgeon’s office. She had my chart in front of her and was super helpful!

My last MRI back in October showed a benign thing in my shoulder cartilage.  So then yesterday’s MRI was compared to the baseline one last October, it was unchanged. That’s great news!

According to yesterday’s MRI, I still have tendinopathy and bursitis visible in my left shoulder. So I will get another visit to the good folks at Ortho coming up.  Last time I saw Dr Ortho, he said I had a frozen shoulder. He said this can be made worse with physical therapy, so it was a “wait and see” situation. I would love to have full range of motion back, but we’re not quite there yet.

MRI’s aren’t great at lungs because lungs are always in motion. This MRI didn’t answer the question of what they were seeing in the lungs last fall. So I’ll soon be getting another CT scan to check on that. It’s expected to also be scar tissue from radiation. And with the baseline imaging from last fall, they should understand more.

All that to say that breast cancer radiation really was hard on my shoulder, but we knew that already.  They didn’t just radiate the breast area, they went after lymph nodes in the zone – which included the shoulder.

Seems like we still see our doctors a lot! Thankfully, they are lovely people. I keep thinking that I’ll soon be past all these doctor visits. Maybe I’ll have a few months here and there when I’m not in a doctor’s office? Is that an unrealistic expectation?

Yesterday I was once again inside the MRI hearing all those interesting noises. This time I didn’t choose Aretha Franklin – her music makes it nearly impossible to hold still! LOL! This time I think I got the nurse’s favorite music – at least it was easier to hold still.

I again looked around for Jesus and finally sensed that he was right there holding my hand. That’s the most beautiful thing about all this. I keep looking around for Jesus. And somehow an ever-so-gentle impression emerges that Jesus is indeed there with me. Medical imaging is still tiring, and it blows the schedule for an entire day. But the presence of Jesus really does help!

As my gent would say: “Isn’t the Lord kind?!”

Sending love your way,

Carmen