CT scan

Results From CT Scan

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Wow! What an emotional rollercoaster.

Last Tuesday I had a followup CT Scan. The results were uploaded to my “Follow My Health” account online yesterday. The results showed “There is a new ground-glass nodule within the left upper lobe measuring up to 14 mm”. Followed by: 1. New spiculated area of ground-glass within the left upper lobe which may be infectious or inflammatory.

I started wondering if this means the cancer has spread from my tonsils and lymph nodes to my lungs? Dr Gillison told me months ago that if it metastasized to my lungs it would be considered Stage IV and there wouldn’t be much they could do for me. May and I were freaked out by the report.

I wasn’t scheduled to see the Dr. to discuss the CT scan results until next week. I called the office first thing this morning and explained that I had seen the report and needed to get in to discuss it as soon as possible. They called back and got me in at 10:30 am today. He explained that we needed to do another scan in 6 weeks and see if it grows, stays the same, shrinks or disappears. This will give us much better idea of what’s going on. If it’s bigger we’ll do a biopsy. If it stays the same or shrinks we’ll keep an eye on it. If it’s gone we won’t worry about it.

He felt that it is more likely that it is from infection rather than cancerous. I told him that I had read that “spiculated” often means it is malignant. He said that the image was not spiculated and didn’t know why that was in the report. He said that it was what they refer to as ground-glass which is cloudy rather than solid. Though not 100%, this is typical of infections.

Now I’m waiting for another scan in 6 weeks and another few days for the results.

Just when you think your in the clear. Nope!

Still waiting.

A Little Bit of a Scare

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Weight: 155.6

It’s been 5 months since my last radiation treatment. I wouldn’t say I’m one hundred percent but I’m closer to one hundred percent than I thought I’d ever be just a few months ago, so that’s great. I’ve been back to work for 7 weeks and started lifting in the gym for the first time in 3 years. My taste is steadily improving and the throat pain is gone. I still have dry mouth but ACT lozenges and my ever present bottle of water help with that.

About 10 days ago I noticed a hard lump on the left side of my neck. It felt similar to the lymph node that started this whole ordeal 10 months ago. I already had a visit with the ENT Dr. Huang scheduled for today so I figured I’d just wait and ask him about it when I saw him.

Over the past week I’ve constantly been checking the new intruder to see if I could detect any changes. It appeared to be getting smaller. Also when I first noticed it, it was painful. It is no longer painful and got noticeably smaller which was encouraging.

At my checkup today I asked Dr. Huang about it. He checked it out and said it was actually swelling in my carotid artery. He was certain it’s not a return of cancer and said it’s nothing to be concerned about. He felt that it was probably caused by my constantly self checking my neck. I’m always checking my neck for anything unusual since the original diagnosis of cancer in the lymph node. Apparently I’ve developed a habit of feeling my neck which has irritated it and caused the lump. His advice to me was simply “Stop playing with it”, which was kind of funny.

I guess for a while it will be normal to expect the worst every time there’s a lump, unexplained cough or anything else out of the ordinary. I was never concerned about these things back when I thought “It can’t happen to me”. Now that I realize it can, everything appears to be a threat. Hopefully this will ease up over time but for right now, it’s all still pretty fresh in my mind and hard to ignore.

Everything went well at my visit with Dr. Huang and I’m still cancer free.