Of Straws and hope

We have certain milestones that give us hope and we look for them much as ancient wizards read runes and looked for signs in the heavens. We try to divine them and look for meaning in them as a sign of hope of things to come. One such sign came into our lives.

At the beginning of treatment the Oncologist said that the primary tumor "fed" the smaller tumors in the bone and that by killing the primary and drying up all the estrogen in her body, we would get rid of the ones affecting her bones. One particularly nasty tumor is lodged on her spine and is eating away at the bone material on her spine. This of course has caused extreme pain. It affected her walk and caused so much pain that we had to use a wheelchair as she could not walk.

We had the usual assortment of pain killers - morphine, Oxycontin, percocet. They would mask part of the pain and she could walk with a rocking gait, dragging her right leg along as much as employing it. Every step was painful and you cold see it in her face. Climbing even the smallest stair step was arduous. It was shear pain in action.

Last week she walked towards the car and I noticed that she had a smoother but still rolling gait. She also was not grimacing as she took steps.

"Hey, you're walking better." I said. "How do you feel?"

"It doesn't hurt as much. I can walk a bit better.", she replied.

I waited and watched as the next several days went by. Each day I looked to see if she was moving easier and more fluidly, normally. It appeared she was and each day I told her and asked if she was feeling better. Every day the reply was the pain is better, much better.

Saturday she said she was pain free and not taking pain meds.

I look into my crystal ball, throw bones and divine the signs. Perhaps I am grasping at straws, perhaps things are getting better.