Please PET Me

I could have entitled this the scariest Halloween ever. Sigh. Of course my cancer never behaves the way it should. I remember the words of Dr. Denise Yardley at Sarah Cannon who said “Your cancer always needs some adult supervision in the room.” I’m trying to be the adult who keeps it under tight reins.

This blog is about the results of the PET scan on Halloween, but results unofficial without a biopsy, so don’t freak out because I’m trying not to freak out. But honestly I’m a bit scared. Scared of the way my tumor moves, of losing my hair all over again, being exhausted, to name a few. Triple negative breast cancer is scary and unpredictable.

My scan showed that two lymph nodes on my RIGHT side lit up. One is especially “Hot.” If you don’t know how a PET scan works, here’s a quick description: Techs inject you with a sugar and slightly radioactive dye that goes to any quickly growing cells. Cancer cells gobble up sugar. (And no don’t go on a rant about sugar. It’s more complex than that.} Then the area lights up when person is scanned. I’ve had about 4 of these. The more proliferation of cells, the brighter the hot area. So this one is at 5.6 which is pretty indicative of something growing or glowing (haha). A slightly abnormal reading is 1-3. According to my husband who saw the films, one doc in room had a deer in headlights look when he saw activity level.

The good news: cancer is totally gone on left side where it originated! Yay! Protons burned up those microscopic suckers. But Dan said he’s never seen a cancer move from one side of the lymphs to the other. It’s like a horror movie where the cancer is sentient and moves away from treatment to a safer area,.

Realistically, it could be several things: New cancer, same cancer which was in my vascular system. or a remote chance of lymphoma (curable), Or best case, it could be nothing, but not likely. Biopsy Tues. morning Nov. 5. Election day.

That’s where I am. I love Pet Scans because they let me know where cancer going. Don’t care about the minor radiation. Probably more radiation treatment in future and possibly a drug like Ibrance which is used for metastatic cancer. I’m so lucky that medicare covers all these scans. Some people die of cancer because their insurance doesn’t cover scans. Dumb. Medicare for all!

It’s only been about 6 weeks since my last chemo and a month since protons stopped and it’s already on the move. What if my doc had waited to scan me? What if, what if, what if? I still have options. And now I’m going to yoga.