'Stable disease'

Dave and I went to the RAH today for my appointment with Dr Giri to find out the results of my CT scan and just for a checkup.

The CT scan showed that there has been no further reduction in the size of the masses they've been comparing each time. There hasn't been an increase though either. Apparently I have "stable disease" at this point in time. I have to have a PET scan in two weeks (on the 8th June) and that will indicate if there is any active disease remaining in the masses. It is quite possible that the masses have stayed the same size due to scar tissue that has formed during chemo.

If my PET scan shows there is no active disease then that will be it until my next checkup with the doctor. If it comes back positive for disease, which would actually be a negative outcome for me, I will have to have another PET scan a few more weeks after it to confirm the result because sometimes there can be a false positive due to the activity of macrophages and the like cleaning up the cancer cells that were killed during the last round of chemo. Dr Giri tells me it can take quite a while for the body to tidy up and dispose of all the dead cells.

If the second PET is still positive, I will need to have a biopsy so the result can be confirmed by pathology. If that comes back positive too then further treatment of some description may be required. That's a while off though and Dr Giri was not surprised that it had not reduced and he thought that the outcome thus far is fairly normal.

So that's it really. I still don't know much about what's going on inside me and we are still in limbo as to what the future holds. I guess it's still one day at a time but that's a bit annoying because I thought things were getting back to some degree of normal.