New Cancer Update!

 
                                                               Me a year ago last March!

New Dentures, Hair color and healthy weight!

I am irish, so had to go with light auburn! 

Wow I can not believe 5 months have gone by without any posts on this blog! I am looking and feeling good and just recently celebrated my 15th wedding anniversary! Amazing what a difference just a year in photos can make! My hair came in ALL white and I looked 70 so thought a new color was in order for a bit!

I had my latest scan which turned up crazy, putting me in a low emotion wise for the rest of the day but each morning is a new day! I knew I just needed to sink into my disappointment and process all the new information. With a good night sleep I knew I would be back to my positive, happy self and I was.

Now I have scans every 4 months, this most recent scan showed the few spots of cancer I have to have remained exactly the same from the scan 4 months ago to the one I just had. The Cat scan showing no change at all means that it has all stabilized ( about 6 or 7 spots altogether) These are all about the size of a pea which is good because it has gone from only 3% of my liver being healthy when I was first diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer to about 90% healthy liver now! AWESOMESAUCE RIGHT?

Well it would be but for something strange and something NEW!

There is a new spot that was not there on the past scan but is there on the most recent. It is 3cm so about the size of a golf ball. It is a perfect circle which cancer is not typically a perfect circle. It could be a sign that my cancer has adapted and mutated but then it is weird and rare that it would only be ONE SPOT. Even more weird is that this is there and new yet nothing else had any changes what so ever.

So it boils down to everyone is really puzzled by this foreign alien baby misplaced from my uterus growing on my liver. 

This had me having to go to a hospital farther away to have a 2 hour PET/CT Scan done. They pump radioactive substance into you through an IV for an hour ( after doing a glucose test to make sure they can even do the test) and then run you through this tube. One side is the CT scan that gives the anatomy of the spot, and the PET scan gives the physiology composition of it.  They take the CT scan film and then lay the PET scan film over the top giving them a more 3D diagram and detailed images of exactly what they may be looking at. The radioactive stuff seeks out and binds to the cancer......much like a heat seeking missile and this will show them how your tumors react to sugar as cancer feeds on sugar. Really cool interesting stuff!

So NOW I am waiting, the test was 2 days ago and I sit, and I wait. This test will determine if I need a biopsy on that spot in my liver or the next step from here. 

As of right now we have no clue weather it is  a mutated adapted cancer not responsive to hormone therapy or if it is not cancer and perhaps something else.

The waiting is always the hardest! But in the meantime I am getting more active and been feeling better than I have in years! We have been going for bike rides, beach and walks around parks with the dogs and kids. It has been an incredible summer with mild temps and just amazing.

Hopefully the news I am waiting for won't be bad news!