Sandy is in remission. On January 31st she had a blood draw to determine her current CA-125 score. On the following Thursday she found out the score and told me: It's 51. Normal is 35 or below. Also, the last time we saw Dr. Yamada she told us that she wasn't concerned about a small increase in the score but would be concerned if it doubled or more. It had more than tripled.
We were concerned about this, naturally. When we saw Dr. Yamada today she was armed with a CT scan Sandy had taken earlier this morning. After having read the scan, the doctor said she wouldn't know where to begin any surgery if it came to that, meaning that there was nothing obvious to be concerned about. She said that cancer such as Sandy's does not grow quickly and that we should return in three months as usual, but that we should call in right away if any pain develops quickly, etc. This eased Sandy's mind, which is all I cared about for now.
As an aside, it snowed hard in Chicago last week. As a result, the University of Chicago Medical Center (UCMC) was shut down for two days. Not only that, but the snow built up in the upper decks of the parking garage, taking many parking spaces. When we arrived at UCMC it seemed like there were a lot more people and cars around than normal, and there were. Today was a day when patients were catching up on appointments missed last week. I estimated that the number of people we saw today was double what we'd seen in the past. It was truly amazing.
It takes less than an hour to get to UCMC from our house; it took longer than that to find parking once we got there.
But the most important part of this day was that the score of 51 doesn't mean Sandy is back to square one right now. We remain vigilant.
