Had a scare last week... was having some bad pains in my chest and went to my radiation oncologist to get checked out. He sent me for a CT because he said what I was describing sounded like impingement from tumor growth. The CT revealed what appeared to be new cancerous tissue in my chest, which meant that my treatment (15 weeks of one of the most aggressive chemo protocols there is and 25 consecutive radiation treatments) was not totally effective.
So I was sent in for an early PET scan (radio-active glucose injected into your body is a weird thing
). The reuslts... the new "growth" was suspected to be inflammation from the radiation!!! They cannot say for sure that I am cancer-free, but the PET looked clear. So now I go in in one month for a CT to see if the "inflammation" has reduced in size, and if so, I get checked every 4-6 months for any neo-plastic activity. If, after 5 years of this, I am clear, I am officially "cured"!
That's the latest update!
