High Fives for Everyone

Dr. Mutch and I have a pretty rad relationship.  He calls and emails me on a somewhat regular basis (including my birthday!).  I have his office number, his cell number, and his home number.  He calls himself by his first name almost every time he calls me and then corrects it to “Dr. Mutch”.  He’s come to expect my high fives when things are going well, and he seems to genuinely like me.  I like that.

Last week I went in for my scans and my regular physical exam with Dr. Mutch.  The preliminary results from the scan showed that things were “stable”… which means that everything is either the same size or has shrunk somewhat.  “Stable” suggests that the chemo is working.  “Stable” is good.  “Shrinking” would be better, of course, but we’ll celebrate the small victories just the same.

Part of this next blurb may be an over-share (as if I don’t have a history of that), but it’s all in the name of a good story.  Here goes.  I’m in the exam room, undressed from the waist down, laying on the table, feet in stirrups.  Dr. Mutch goes in to have a feel around and says, with his finger still inside my body, and sounding as though he’d just found a 100 bill in the laundry, “Oh! This is smaller! You’re responding!” I said, “Seriously?!” as an enormous smile devoured my face.  He said, “Yes! Really!” I closed my eyes and thrust my clenched fists into the air as if I’d just won the Boston Marathon. I then looked over his head as he continued to manually survey my goods.  The resident and two nurses standing in the back of the room were cheering wildly, clapping and smiling right along with me.  As they left the exam room, I got a high five from Dr. Mutch and the resident. This is the greatest medical team on the planet, I think.  Well, at least when it comes to celebrating awesomeness.  And, let me tell you, there’s an awful lot of awesome to celebrate right here.