Dancing With Cancer Memoirs...My First Scan

A couple of months ago I had my last hamburger. It was big and juicy and I ate the whole thing, knowing I would be paying for my indulgence the next day. I just didn't know how high the price would be. I didn't know that I would apparently screw up my guts; it looks like something 'slipped' in my innards and I can't get them back where they are suppose to be. I push them back where they are suppose to be and they ooze back out. Creepy. I told my oncologist and he ordered a CT scan to be done October 10th. I drank liquid chalk for breakfast that morning and did not enjoy it. I didn't enjoy the needle either, but that wasn't too bad. I'm pretty fed up with needles. The needle that goes in my port looks like a nail instead of a needle.

I never received a phone call to say anything was wrong so I wasn't worried. I believe my onc was on vacation when the results came back in. He seems to take a lot of time off.

So I called about 2.5 weeks later to request a paper copy of the results for my records and was told there were 'areas of concern' on my liver and gallbladder and I needed a PET scan done. Not only was I shocked but I was furious. Why the hell didn't I get a phone call two weeks ago telling me this??? So what my onc is on vacation? There are other oncologists who fill in for him, for Christs' sake.

So on October 29th I go to the hospital bright and early in the morning. I'm a little antsy with the needle, of course, and the tech is trying to pin my arm down so he can shoot me up with radioactive stuff (I'm surprised I don't glow in the dark by now, seriously). I finally cooperate and was soon slid through the narrow tunnel. After it was done I asked if I could look at the pictures, knowing that if I saw white areas on my liver I was screwed. The tech guy did one better; he put the pictures on a disk! Great! I work with a lot of nurses, maybe one of them could help me decipher the results. Waiting two days for the oncologist to give me the results seemed like a long time to be sitting on pins and needles. Besides, they seem to be a bit slow to call me with the results of scans.

Sure enough, a tiny white speck showed up on my liver. I try not to panic; when I had my surgery a tiny piece of my liver was cut out for a biopsy that my surgeon was concerned about but thankfully was a false alarm and not cancerous, maybe that's what was showing up.

My oncologist said the same thing. The white speck needed to be watched closely and I would need an MRI in a couple of weeks. Not one to wait around passively, I called my surgeon's office while I was getting napalmed and had the nurse look at my chart and tell me exactly where the biopsy was taken from my liver. It turns out to be exactly where the white speck was. Whew! I'm not so worried anymore, but it still needs to be watched closely, just in case the cancer did manage to invade my liver, which would put me at stage IV. That would really, really, suck. That would put my five year survival at around 8%.

I now understand the agony people here speak of when they talk about scans and having to wait for a definitive answer.