The In-Between Scan

For those of you who have been following along, you know my last PET/CT scan showed some new activity (a spot) and that I was going to have a follow-up CT in a month to see what's going on.

Well it's been a month!

I went Friday for my CT scan. They're a little different from a PET/CT. When you get the CT alone it's a much quicker process. Instead of getting the injection of radioactive sugar (like during the PET) they give you an injection of something that makes you feel warm all over. Your throat feels especially burn-y and you also feel like you've peed your pants. Luckily you don't *actually* pee yourself, but it sure feels like it for about 30 seconds.

I'm told that the solution they inject into your arm is heavier than blood and shows up a different color grey on the CT scan so they can differentiate your circulatory system from the rest of you. See, on a PET/CT the doctors see the results in color, based on how much of the radioactive sugar is absorbed by each part of my body (with cancer lighting up really brightly). On just a CT everything is in grey scale, so it's more difficult to decipher (at least for Hodgkin's).

At first the radiologist thought the spot looked like it was possibly bigger. That's what the report states (not that it *is* bigger, but that it might be bigger). Well Dr. Essell is not one for mights and maybes. He marched right down to the radiology department, found a radiologist whose competency he trusted, and together they looked at my last 4 scans side by side.

It seems this spot has actually been there for awhile, and it's been the same size each time. Since there is no growth, Dr. Essell says it is likely not cancer. We didn't discuss it at the office, but my guess is the spot didn't show up on previous PETs because it's not cancer and only showed up on this last PET because I was sick and the spot was aggravated. That's my (optimistic) guess.

But does any of this sound familiar to you guys? Do you remember another spot I had that showed up, but then didn't grow for awhile so we thought it was nothing to worry about? Well that spot eventually DID start growing and is what kicked off my second move from Florida to Kentucky and my second stem cell transplant.

So I'm a little skeptical about spots that show up but then don't grow. Call me jaded. I can't help it. I do not like spots. Even static ones that my doctor says not to worry about. Spots=bad.

That's my pessimistic interpretation (and the one I will not be able to extract from my heart and my dreams) for the next three months. Then we'll get another PET/CT and we'll see how that looks.

Don't get me wrong. This is *good* news. If this scan had confirmed a growing spot, or found new spots, we'd really know there was trouble. I'll take good news every time, even when I'd prefer no spots at all.