Well, the bad news is that there is cancer.

That's it. No good news. Just the ugly of it all. I have cancer in my lungs and lymph nodes. It is malignant and metastisized.

Oh, and I woke up with the narliest head cold with congestion that's working into my lungs so yay me.

Good news? I don't have COVID.

After meeting with the pulmonologist this morning to confirm the PET scan results, he said yes, I can call it cancer. There is hope that it could be lymphoma (a much easier cancer to treat and higher survival rates), but until we get a biopsy, we can't know what kind of cancer it is. There's also a SMALL chance that it could be an infection or an auto immune issue, but the liklihood is very small.

So the next step is to get a biospy. I now have a referral in to an oncologist and a thoracic surgeon and the biopsy order. My team will be the cancer doc, the surgeon, the lung doc and my doc. From the biopsy we can identify exactly what kind of cancer and discuss treatment options.

And if it is indeed Stage 3 Lung cancer as Dr. Karen from the University of Google thinks, the 5 year survival rates are... not pretty. Depending on the kind of course, but, if I make it to the 5 year survival rate, I'll feel like I've won the lottery.

I'll be building up my network of support and reaching out for help. For those of you who know and are using this to keep updated, I'm sorry for all of us. It sucks.

For right now, the best support is to let me get over this head cold and get through the weekend. I don't have the answers and none of us are wishing for this diagnosis so please understand if I don't call/text/email/message back right now. If I could prevent my friends and family from hurting or grieving from this news, I would do it. So, again, funny jokes, memes, inappropriate gifts are all welcome.

As my friend so poignantly said, cancer never has a stop, it's a long path to the next answer, test, treatment, result. Or specifically: "The odd thing with cancer treatment is that everything keeps moving forward and doesn't come to a grinding halt like you think it would." True.

And lastly, I asked on Twitter what the best response to a friend telling you they have cancer? And this response was the perfect one:

"I'm here to support you, however you need that to look."

Thank you for being here to support me. Right now I need a quiet relaxing weekend.

Love, Karen