This morning, I had this "V/Q Nuclear Scan" along with another xray. I got to breathe radioactive gas for 6 minutes, and then get a radioactive injection. With this, the prior xrays, CT scan and and special PET/CT Fusion scan the past week -- I do not think I will be able to sneak up on anyone after dark. I probably am going to be glowing
After the scans this morning, I went to see the Pulmonologist. She said the biopsy actually came back negative, but she knows it's cancer from how it looked. She just wasn't able to get enough of it (I was coughing apparently -- twilight sort of memories of it, because the nurses had spilled formaldehyde on the blanket!). But the CT / PET Fusion scan "lit up" there which indicates cancer. They had giving me an injection of some sort of radioactive glucose which will concentrate in cancer cells and then show up on the image. We expected it to show that but the PHEW is it showed it only there in my lung. If there's any other cancer anywhere else, it is way too small to be seen so this is really good. I already accepted this "lesion" is cancer and it is not that hard to fix and put behind me from what Dr. Foley (pulmonologist) has explained, but I had been getting worked up emotionally this week with all the addition "extravagant" testing worried we'd find it was all over my body.
I see the surgeon on Tuesday and will know more about when the surgery will happen, but Dr. Foley said she'd think it will happen within a week or two. She said she's even had patients go see this doctor and have surgery the next day. The surgeon may be able to tell me if he thinks he can do with cameras, or the more traditional way. W/ cameras and I'm in the hospital about 3 days, the regular way, about 5 days. Dr. Foley wasn't exactly sure on my "at home" recovery time or when I could drive as apparently I get to have some of the real good pain killers (ahhhh... the silver lining...).
Dr. Foley was surprised at how "chipper" I was when we talked after I remarked that she probably never saw such a smiling person with a cancer diagnosis. I told her I'd just gotten re-worked up scared it would be all over me and inoperable. I'm so happy she thinks this will be easy to fix. After I am "on my feet" from surgery, she will have me see an oncologist to be see if I need chemo or radiation. She didn't think I would, but obviously, we need to find out for sure and I want to be aggressive as we can be. She said "IF" I need it, it will be probably just 6wks of it and then I'd be done. Then like every 6mos or so I get a CT scan or xray (now I forget which she said). I shouldn't need another PET / CT Fusion scan unless something is detected with the xray or CT routine.
PHEW!!! By the time most people have a cough and go in, it has spread. The only only only reason I even got a chest xray was the needle in a haystack to rule out that I'd caught anything from those colts I got from another farm last fall who had Rhodo. Pneumonia and died despite aggressive treatment with our vets... How ironic that loosing them and going through what we do now to protect our foals actually probably saved my life since throwing this out at my endocrinologist is what got me referred to an infectious disease doctor who, thank God, ordered a chest xray. I've never been a smoker, had no coughing, no nothing to ever suspect I had a lung problem and my lung function tested at 65% -- which I also was never aware of (but maybe that explains the tiredness). Only a small amount of my lung is impacted by this, but it is blocking the airway to that lung. Maybe it coming out will improve it but "whatever". I'm just happy that this is continuing to look like a good outcome.
