Cancer Log 20.1.10 (January 2020)

I don’t know how, but somehow people are reading this as if it’s current. It is not. This post was from January 2020. The cancer appeared to be in remission for several months, but when I had the scheduled CT Scan in July, it was back So far, I haven’t been able to push it into remission again. But I haven’t given up hope!

More really great news!

On Monday, I had another CT Scan. Yesterday, I had some blood work, and went to my oncologist again.

 I’m still anemic, but the rest of the blood work is pretty much back in the normal range. My immune system and platelets are back on line. Yay!

The nodules have gotten even smaller. (The raw numbers are about the same size as I reported last time, because, as the doctor explained to us, different radiologists estimate the size of things this tiny differently. So they compare the two scans, and note the size (as they see it) for the one in November, and the size of the one this week. The nodules are about half the size they were.)

They are now too tiny for surgery. The surgeon wouldn’t be able to find them. They are so small, my oncologist said, that it’s possible there are no cancer cells left, and what we are seeing is just scar tissue. 

All three are in the upper lobe of my left lung. The one that the original PET scan found in my right lung seems to have vanished, according to the doctor.

So, he told us, we now have two choices. I could have another two sessions of chemo, or I can have a break for a couple of months, and then another CT Scan to see if anything has changed.

I asked which he recommended, and he said the break. Which means that I can recover completely from chemo before anything else has to be done. If anything else has to be done at all.

So that’s what I’m doing! We go back on April 1 (which is the perfect day for it) and if all is well, which I think is what he’s expecting, then we just go back every three months for another CT scan for the rest of my life. In the meantime, I have a five o’clock shadow on my scalp, and my eyebrows are itching, because the hair is growing back in.

As my oncologist left the room, he said, “Congratulations!”

So, with any luck, that’s it for the Cancer Log, at least for a while. We now return you to the regularly scheduled blog, about Second Life and the occasional short story, if anyone is interested in short stories!