Hey all – training and fundraising are going AWESOME.  I’ve reached way beyond my minimum and am not stopping anytime soon.

A bit of a surprise though – just had my first “abnormal” CT result at one of my 4-month checkups, which happened to fall around my 2-yr remission date.

I just posted a message to my Team In Training group page – thought they deserved the news just as much as you all do.  Here it is – over 130 triathletes racing for the Leuk/Lymph. cause received this message.

— In TNTSpring09TriTeam@yahoogroups.com, “criso…”

Hey TEAM,

How did you survive the brutally cold Sat morning bikeride? I was
cursing myself at every loop, but I made it.  Still need me some
booties and better gloves before it finally warms up. Although
apparently the groundhog wasn’t in our favor Monday…

Just thought you deserved a health update. So every 4 months I go for
my checkup – and last Thursday’s marked my 2-yr point.  And oddly
enough, for the first time, I received my first “abnormal” CT result.
Here I am in the middle of training, I expect the usual in/out
treatment by the docs, and I hit a blip.

At the same time, it’s nothing to freak out about – still
inconclusive, but we know things are not as they usually appear. The
radiologist mentioned “bone erosion” and “inflammatory mass”.  OK….
Anyway, the docs – and I myself, based on how I’m feeling – believe
it’s most likely associated with the damage caused by radiation to the
sinus area and nothing worse.  To be sure, they’re sending me back on
Wed for a PET scan to see what pops up.  Based on that, we’ll figure
out what’s next and find out what’s causing this change.

This is probably all going to be nothing and some other side effect
that I’ll get used to, but I wanted to write about it because I feel
like you’re going through it with me since we’re all training for this
cause now — and I wanted to journal a bit about what was going on
real-time.  It’s funny how this has never scared me – and even though
I’m kind of in limbo now, I’m more annoyed at the wait than the
impending result.

I rarely take my clean bills of health for granted, and this was just
another reminder of that. But I have to admit, it’s really pushed me
on those workouts!

Just one of my own “mission moments” to get you through the week – and
I promise to send out the good news as soon I get it. See some of you
at Tuesday night’s swim -

- HT Cris

(HT = Honored Teammate)  Crazy huh?   I’ll be sure to do the same to all of you readers and post a message as soon as I find out what’s going on.

L, C