Numbers

Numbers can mean all different things. For example, I wear a shoe size of 8, my eyesight is -3.75R & -3.50L, I'm 5'3", I normally drive at least 10 miles over the speed limit which is also a number. My alarm starts going off on the same number every morning, I'm the 3rd daughter and have 2 daughters myself, I weigh....now wait a minute, did you really think I was going to share that with you? You get my point. There are numbers that relate to us EVERYWHERE. We can't escape numbers!

Recently, I've been able to celebrate two very important numbers. Numbers that most of you have never heard of & I pray you never will. One is a tumor marker & the other is called ejection fraction. When I started my battle with cancer, my tumor marker was 84. What does that mean? I had cancer BAD. Anything under 30 is considered "normal". I've been receiving tumor marker test results periodically and have watched the number miracuously drop thorughout the months. My marker was tested again the week of Christmas and came back at 19! As you can probably imagine, the news was the best present I ever could have recieved. I've had to stop chemo because of the damage it had done to my heart. I took a two month break while taking "heart boosting" medicine. Again, I was waiting for a magic number of >50 to come back from a heart scan. This past Tuesday, I had an additional MUGA scan done. I received a call today with the good news. My ejection fraction is now at 60!!! That means I can can continue with the poison (chemo) that keeps the demon away! Most would think I'm crazy to be so excited to start back on chemo, but to me it's a blessing. It's my security blanket or my "soft kitty" or "rattle pig". My little angels know just what I'm talking about ;)