My oncologist actually said today "Well, if our goal is to still acheive a CURE for you"....(CURE???

It's wierd. From the very beginning right after my surgery, as my chemo-oncologist was encouraging me to push on with aggressive chemo and radiation, he always said "We've got one shot at curing you of this, because if it comes back we will only talk about managing your cancer as a chronic condition." This opinion that after recurrance this cancer is not curable is backed up by everything I've read about UPSC, which is so like ovarian cancer in treatment and prognosis. So when my cancer recurred after a 5-month remission, I tearfully put away all hopes of a cure and went into a regime of weekly taxol to 'hold' my cancer in check.

After 10 round of this weekly taxol, my CA-125 climbed 2 points following a month of very tiny drops of 1 to 5 points, and it looked like the weak-dose taxol was no longer doing the job. So my onc scheduled a CT/PET to see where we are before changing chemos. SURPRISE! My CT/PET was clear! NOTHING lit up; 2 of the 3 lymph nodes that were enlarged in my November scan were invisible now; and the other one had shrunk to 11 mm and did not light up!! No one expected THAT, with my CA-125 on the rise.

So I had an appointment today to discuss what we should do next. In the course of the conversation, my chemo-oncologise said "Well, if our goal for you is still to achieve a CURE, let's consider going balls-to-the-wall with another aggressive 4 to 6 rounds of carbo-taxol at full strength." WHAT??? I've already grieved over the loss of the hope of a cure and moved on as best I could, and now you re-awaken that hope??? HECK! I would do the carbo/taxol rounds all again to even achieve a year or 2 year remission! In a HEARTBEAT! I thought our goal now was just to keep me ALIVE as long as possible, factoring in quality-of-life issues when choosing chemo options. I didn't even think he was optimistic for a remission for me. (Statistical life expectancy following UPSC recurrence is 15 months.) So I asked him if he REALLY thought I had a shot at a cure or prolonged remission, and he said "I wouldn't suggest you go through this again if I didn't". (This is a man who told me right after I recurred that I could expect LONG periods of treatment followed by SHORT breaks for the rest of my life.) Do you think he is just bouyed-up by my surprise clean CT/PET scan? Dare I allow those kinds of hopes to flicker alive again?

I already have an appointment Monday for a 2nd opinion. I will have the results of the CA-125 they took today by then, to factor into the discussion. But what do you think? I never expected to hear the word 'cure' from him again. I am afraid to allow myself to start hoping for that.