poked again
yesterday mom and i ventured down to HUP for a field trip. we were taking the afternoon to enjoy a leisurely visit to the radiation oncology clinic. an appointment i had conveniently scheduled for the same day as my meeting with my medical oncologist (two weeks ago) had been rescheduled because my radiation oncologist's wife had the nerve to have her baby the night before the day i was to get my scan results. now that he is fully sleep-deprived brand new dad i was finally able to have my radiation oncologist review my scans and give me his prognosis of my situation.
karma can be a feisty lady and came back to bite me in the hind quarters for being late to my radiation oncologist's appointment in september. i thought the holiday gifts might have staved it off, but in reality, who was i kidding? i was due for some waiting. and an hour and a half after my scheduled time to see my doctor i finally did get to sit in a tiny room with mom, doc, and resident and talk about my hazy, cloudy mass.
good news:
- i sleep well
- i eat well
- i am up to 126 pounds
- i run well
- i feel well
- the top chest radiologist and one of the top radiation oncologists don't think it is cancer
- no one is scheduling me for urgent scans or surgery
other news
- there's no way to be 100% sure it isn't cancer without a sample
- it doesn't really look like cancer but it might be cancer
- a PET scan won't help us out, except to show whether it is anywhere else in my body, which we don't really think is the case
in summary, concerning the stuff in my lung, everyone's cancer antennae are raised and picking up what little they can. no one is rushing me to have anything done other than another CT scan on February 8, so that is indicitive of their overall feeling of whether this is an urgent (cancer) situation. so i am on a "short leash" with a scan coming up and more doctor appointments.
i got to see the images from my september scan versus the images from my january scan, and there is absolutely no mistaking that there is indeed a hazy, cloud like mass in there. it was incredible to look at the pictures and have them explained to me. it is very obvious that the left side of my chest is about 1/3 or so larger (in diameter, if you can imagine each side as an individual) than the right side. i just don't have any lung space holding open my body. in the images from september we can see very apparent inflammation from the radiation, in the form of a hazy line (not unlike the quality of haze of my current "mass") cutting directly through my lung. if you can imagine, the radiation took the form of beams slicing into my chest. the line is the exact route one of the treatment beams followed through my lung tissue. it is amazing, and a clear indicaction that yes, when i lied on that table and listened to the machine hum and twirl around me, it was in fact killing cancer and doing damage to me in the meantime. i was really glad to see the images and understand them a bit.
the reason we reviewed the scans is because we were killing time before i underwent a needle biopsy to sample a pesky little lymph node that had showed up near my right collarbone and neck. i noticed it on friday and saved the question to ask until i saw my doctor yesterday. he was quick to reassure me that this, too, didn't seem too suspect - cancerous lymph nodes are often harder, larger, and don't move around. this one was kind of hard, but pea-sized, and moving around all over the place as we tried to catch it to press on it. we didn't think a biopsy would do any harm, though, and it was a simple procedure, really. simple if you enjoy having a needle jabbed into the soft tissue where your collar bone meets your neck. sign me up.
the pathology department has a roving crew whose job entails jabbing people with needles, taking fluid samples, slapping it on some slides, taking a preliminary look, then bringing it back to their lab to have a better look. my sample would be compared to the lymph nodes that were resected during my surgeries. we laughed and joked a bit during the five minutes it took; i once again had to explain that yes, i have had countless iv's full of poison but yes, i am still scared shitless of needles (my exact words). they had a hard time getting the node to stay still enough to stab it, so there was a little bit of sitting, me with my eyes slammed shut so as not to spy the needle, the doctor saying things under her breath like, "why are you being so difficult?" to which i, of course, reminded her she should have read my chart and therefore would have seen the level of difficulty we were accustomed to dealing with. finally, take a deep breath, and another one, and the needle was in. there was a surprising bit of moving it around and jabbing at things - ouch - and then it took a little while longer than i had expected. all told, though, it was a minute or two of funny pain, then it was over and they took it away to the microscope and i was left with the post-adrenaline wooziness and a general feeling of "i hadn't planned on doing this today..."
good news, it looked like inflammation. read: white blood cells. but they'll review it and i'll find out for sure in a couple of days. so i'm not too worried about it, which is kind of nice. and i'll be skiing in utah when i get the news, so there's not much to do about it until late next week, no matter what.
conveniently the lengthy wait and subsequent visit took much longer than anticipated and mom and i got to face rush hour on 76 and 95 and the blue route. it has been a while since we had to deal with that. well, mom dealt with it, as i sat in the passenger seat. i learned my lesson last time - always let mom drive.
i was feeling pretty good about everything, no one told me i have to start chemo again, which is nice, not that i was expecting it but i don't know what to expect anymore. i got to hop in my car and head to a Christmas massage and homemade dinner, so the day ended phenomenally well, with me more laid-back and smoother around the edges than usual. i am a lucky girl, needles or not.
karma can be a feisty lady and came back to bite me in the hind quarters for being late to my radiation oncologist's appointment in september. i thought the holiday gifts might have staved it off, but in reality, who was i kidding? i was due for some waiting. and an hour and a half after my scheduled time to see my doctor i finally did get to sit in a tiny room with mom, doc, and resident and talk about my hazy, cloudy mass.
good news:
- i sleep well
- i eat well
- i am up to 126 pounds
- i run well
- i feel well
- the top chest radiologist and one of the top radiation oncologists don't think it is cancer
- no one is scheduling me for urgent scans or surgery
other news
- there's no way to be 100% sure it isn't cancer without a sample
- it doesn't really look like cancer but it might be cancer
- a PET scan won't help us out, except to show whether it is anywhere else in my body, which we don't really think is the case
in summary, concerning the stuff in my lung, everyone's cancer antennae are raised and picking up what little they can. no one is rushing me to have anything done other than another CT scan on February 8, so that is indicitive of their overall feeling of whether this is an urgent (cancer) situation. so i am on a "short leash" with a scan coming up and more doctor appointments.
i got to see the images from my september scan versus the images from my january scan, and there is absolutely no mistaking that there is indeed a hazy, cloud like mass in there. it was incredible to look at the pictures and have them explained to me. it is very obvious that the left side of my chest is about 1/3 or so larger (in diameter, if you can imagine each side as an individual) than the right side. i just don't have any lung space holding open my body. in the images from september we can see very apparent inflammation from the radiation, in the form of a hazy line (not unlike the quality of haze of my current "mass") cutting directly through my lung. if you can imagine, the radiation took the form of beams slicing into my chest. the line is the exact route one of the treatment beams followed through my lung tissue. it is amazing, and a clear indicaction that yes, when i lied on that table and listened to the machine hum and twirl around me, it was in fact killing cancer and doing damage to me in the meantime. i was really glad to see the images and understand them a bit.
the reason we reviewed the scans is because we were killing time before i underwent a needle biopsy to sample a pesky little lymph node that had showed up near my right collarbone and neck. i noticed it on friday and saved the question to ask until i saw my doctor yesterday. he was quick to reassure me that this, too, didn't seem too suspect - cancerous lymph nodes are often harder, larger, and don't move around. this one was kind of hard, but pea-sized, and moving around all over the place as we tried to catch it to press on it. we didn't think a biopsy would do any harm, though, and it was a simple procedure, really. simple if you enjoy having a needle jabbed into the soft tissue where your collar bone meets your neck. sign me up.
the pathology department has a roving crew whose job entails jabbing people with needles, taking fluid samples, slapping it on some slides, taking a preliminary look, then bringing it back to their lab to have a better look. my sample would be compared to the lymph nodes that were resected during my surgeries. we laughed and joked a bit during the five minutes it took; i once again had to explain that yes, i have had countless iv's full of poison but yes, i am still scared shitless of needles (my exact words). they had a hard time getting the node to stay still enough to stab it, so there was a little bit of sitting, me with my eyes slammed shut so as not to spy the needle, the doctor saying things under her breath like, "why are you being so difficult?" to which i, of course, reminded her she should have read my chart and therefore would have seen the level of difficulty we were accustomed to dealing with. finally, take a deep breath, and another one, and the needle was in. there was a surprising bit of moving it around and jabbing at things - ouch - and then it took a little while longer than i had expected. all told, though, it was a minute or two of funny pain, then it was over and they took it away to the microscope and i was left with the post-adrenaline wooziness and a general feeling of "i hadn't planned on doing this today..."
good news, it looked like inflammation. read: white blood cells. but they'll review it and i'll find out for sure in a couple of days. so i'm not too worried about it, which is kind of nice. and i'll be skiing in utah when i get the news, so there's not much to do about it until late next week, no matter what.
conveniently the lengthy wait and subsequent visit took much longer than anticipated and mom and i got to face rush hour on 76 and 95 and the blue route. it has been a while since we had to deal with that. well, mom dealt with it, as i sat in the passenger seat. i learned my lesson last time - always let mom drive.
i was feeling pretty good about everything, no one told me i have to start chemo again, which is nice, not that i was expecting it but i don't know what to expect anymore. i got to hop in my car and head to a Christmas massage and homemade dinner, so the day ended phenomenally well, with me more laid-back and smoother around the edges than usual. i am a lucky girl, needles or not.
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