Folks:
I had that PET scan on Wednesday. The results were, well, rather neutral. The lesion in my left lung has decreased in size, but there it still evidence of cancer in my left ribs, and right hip. Also, there is a lesion (1 cm. by 1 cm.) on my left pleura, which my oncologist, Dr. Suh, is trying to decide what to make of. She is consulting with the Goshen Hospital radiologists, and her former colleagues at the University of Houston (where she did her fellowship) to get some answers, and possibly some new direction for my chemotherapy.
Joan also has an interesting thought about all this. I had X-rays of the chest done in February before surgery on my throat, and there was no evidence of anything growing in my lungs. Yet by April, I was definitely symptomatic for cancer. This says that the cancer was pretty fast-growing. Since there was a six-week gap between the diagnosis of my cancer and the beginning of my chemotherapy, who knows how much the cancer had grown? In other words, the cancer my be responding well to the chemotherapy, and what we are seeing on the PET scan on Wednesday is actually a great improvement over what was really there in August. We'll never know, because the gap between my PET scan in July and the start of treatment in August was too great.
One last thing: as Joan puts it, Dr. Suh is confused by the PET scan, but happy with the organism! The organism is, of course, me, and she (and Joan) are happy with the progress I have made in getting back to work, getting some strength back, and overall improving every week. It seems that no matter what the PET scan shows, I am getting better. And that's great news.
Thanks for your prayers and concerns. I just wanted to give you all and update.
John
Sounds like the same reaction my neurologist had: the MRI still looked terrible, but I was doing well, and that was what mattered.
ReplyDeleteI think there's a practical medical slogan hiding in there -- something like "Trust the 'organism,' not the scans." Not punchy enough, but a start.