As some of the 'old timers' may recall, 14 years ago when I went
through my battle with breast cancer, I created what I called my
Wolf Pack...I felt that since the wolf was nearly extinct and making
a comeback, and my cancer was quite aggressive and I was not
accepting what the odds where, it was a good name for the people who
were supporting me through that fight.

I've been experiencing some difficulties the past few months, and am
going through a bunch of diagnostic tests. A nuclear bone scan,
which I was convinced would come back negative and allay all my
fears, came back yesterday. The radiologist is unable to determine
if what he sees in the lumbar area of my spine is metastatic
disease, a compression fracture or arthritis. Naturally, my doctor
is out of town this week, and we leave on Saturday on a week-long
cruise, so it will be March 19 before we can even discuss next
steps. While it may be (and I sincerely hope it is) premature, I'm
rallying the Wolf Pack again, and asking for prayers, positive
thoughts, whatever each of you do, to help me get through this next
step.

I will say this again...I HATE this disease....not so much for what
you go through in the treatment, but what you live with as you
survive it. When I was staged after diagnosis, I had a nuclear bone
scan. This one this week was the sixth since then...each on because
of indications that the disease was back. Since I don't even pay a
co-payment for them, and my HMO picks up the tab, nobody's making
any money sending me for them and I have to believe they truly are
necessary. I presume that I will be having another MRI when we
return. Hopefully, they will have found the cause of the anemia
that we've also been testing for.

Thanks to you all for your support during this.

Marla