Wednesday, January 12, 2022
It is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Not only did I spend almost 20% of my waking hours dealing with medical things last week, but in scheduling an appointment for a procedure– a bronchoscopy– this morning, I was asked to consider giving up the first day of frosting school! Well, I put the kibash on that faster than you could say “cream the butter and sugar”.
The tumor board met Monday. Dr. Radiology called me around noon with the report. Dr. Oncology called with the news the next day. Here’s the consensus on the three things in question.
The brain lesion: It’s too small to know what’s up with it (remember how Dr. Radiology said last month that if small nodules in my lung were cancer, they would “announce themselves”?). I get to have an MRI in 4-6 weeks (Yippee!) to see if an announcement has been made. If it’s grown, they’ll take a gamma knife to it. If not, I will meet with my primary care doc to talk over general stroke prevention actions. (Like lose the steroid weight I packed on? Yeah. That.)
The cluster of little nodules: Pretty small to know what’s up with them. Inflammation? Infection? Cancer? Stay tuned for the next glow-in-the-dark episode, likely a CT scan with contrast? That’s according to Dr. Oncology, but if I have anything to do with it (HA! You know I will), Dr. Radiology will weigh in.
The dude that lit up the screen: (Perhaps announcing itself?) Of concern. The idea of targeted therapy was thrown out. Instead, there will be a bronchoscopy by one of Dr. Radiology’s highly regarded colleagues. They will biopsy that stupid spot– lung cancer can change its type and mutations overnight, it seems– and also look to see if it’s actually a weirdo infection or other thing. The thought/hope is that they will see what’s there, then, if they can, go back in at another time and zap it, freeze it, whatever. If not, then…we shall see.
So, it’s a mostly-good-news scenario. I’ll take it!
Here’s hoping your days are full of mostly good news.
Thanks for reading.
Background: Adventures with Lung Cancer Girl parts I, II, III