The Unambiguous News

I don't like waiting in anticipation for PET scan results. Assuming you don't either, I'll just go ahead and tell you the doctor was very pleased with my scan. It looks exactly like the last scan (which was ambiguous) but that means there was no new growth, which means no cancer. (Woo hoo!!!)

                          Here's a cancer-free me sliding into the tube for my PET/CT scan.


Now that that's out of the way I have an admission to make. I was so impatient about getting my results that I called the hospital yesterday and asked if I could pick up a copy of my scan results. After the scan a radiologist looks through the images from my scan, compares them to the images from the prior scan, and types up his or her "impression" of the scan. What I'm able to pick up is that "impression." Generally doctors frown on you getting results before they have a chance to look over them and interpret them for you, but I just couldn't resist. So I knew yesterday that this scan was basically a carbon copy of the last scan, which I also knew was good news. I may or may not have squealed in the hospital parking lot. The way I look at it, I exerted significant self-control in making it to the parking lot before I had an outburst.

To my surprise the doctor had even better news for me. He says a very aggressive cancer (and mine was a bully) is most likely to come back within two years, if it's going to come back at all. This upcoming December is the two year anniversary of my transplant, so he is increasingly confident that I'm almost in the clear. Of course any cancer can relapse, but statistically speaking I'm in a good place. We'll do another scan in three months and if we get good results then we will push the scans back to every six months! I love the confidence associated with less frequent scans. I also love the $1,200 or so I'll save a year by spacing them out.

So today = success. The outlook seems good. I think old sir Hodgkin's has hit the road. That's good news because I have a back log of things that I plan to do. It's nice to know that I have plenty of time now.