So the biopsy wounds healed pretty much perfectly with the care of my loving nurse/wife. Last week we got a CT scan and there were significant shrinking on 3 or 4 tumors. One stayed the same and there was a very small increase in another, but that one was so small that it fell within the margin of error for measuring them. Is this remission? This is a question I will be asking the specialist that I am seeing today who ordered the biopsy that I had several weeks ago to see if this procedure he recommended to allegedly eliminate the tumors can move forward. As I write this I am sitting here waiting to speak with him. Fingers crossed and will report before sending this out. Another question is to find out if the reduction in tumor size is in fact considered remission?
It turns out that the biopsy left some kind of liquid surrounding my lungs, not to be confused with in my lungs, which is not a problem and for which they are in no hurry to fix. It does cause me to struggle to breath more than normal and any exertion, even, say, a flight of stairs, causes me to gasp a bit for air. Not so you would notice, but I huff and puff a bit, is the degree that I’m talking about.
As I prefaced we spoke to the oncologist today who looked at the biopsy results and provided us with updated info. Ready for this? (oh man, I don’t want to jinx this and get ahead of myself but…) He has declared that I am basically in remission and that the results indicate that I can move forward with the procedure that he thinks will eradicate my cancer altogether. Keep in mind that the lungs are only one effected area as this is a systemic cancer and I have some small masses on my liver and a small area of bone, but those seem to be stabilized and should respond to treatment as well.
It turns out that when I got the biopsy they removed the biggest tumor in my lungs, which I didn’t even know about until they told me today and….GOD DAMN!….no wonder it hurt like it did and I couldn’t breathe well, even up to today. That is also why there was that liquid around my lungs at the spot where they removed the tumor, which he said was to be expected (He, Doc, did you think I might want to know? But I was hardly going to be upset with all the good news going on, eh?) and the liquid will naturally be absorbed over time.
So then, I imagine that there will be some amount of joyous responses, cuz…well…that’s the kinda folks you are, and I’ll thank you in advance since we’re going on a cruise from the 1st to the 10th from Rome, hitting the Naples, Sicily, Turkey, Greece and … I forget…so, it should be nice… but no internet, so…cheers!l
So the cruise was a nightmare so much so that we’re suing carnival and I didn’t realize until now that I had not posted that story and I wrote a massive narrative because of the lawsuit so maybe I will post it in a separate section in here.