Mom's PET/CT results and a ?

[Tom]

The waiting is over. We got Mom's PET/CT results at the end of the day yesterday, but I was just too exhausted to sit down and post.

The PET/CT showed that not only was there no sign of current malignancy, but that the questionable suspicious areas from her last PET scare, have resolved themselves. I sat stunned as the oncologist reviewed the results. Unlike most of her previous test results, I did not go get them ahead of the oncology appointment. For some reason, probably fear and anxiety, I decided to give myself an extra day of "peace" by not obtaining the results personally. It really made me think this time, about the anguish that the women on this site go through while waiting for their results of various diagnostics. My guts were in a knot. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. My mind raced around the clock, plotting and planning what we would do if we got bad news. After all, Mom has not received any Herceptin since the beginning of July due to low LVEF. I compare that waiting time to walking aound holding a live grenade in my hand with the pin pulled.


But after all of that, I sat limp and spent in the chair as I heard the news that there was no sign of any cancer for now. This is a far more cruel journey than I had earlier realized. God Bless all of you that go through this alone. I can't even imagine what it must be like to be the patient and sit in the waiting room. It explains some of the "10,000 yard stares" I see on patients' faces from time to time in the oncology office.


Even the doctor seemed perplexed that there have been no metastases, considering the fact of course, that 12/20 positive nodes were removed last April, a full 8 months after her original surgery to remove several tumors and an area of chest wall involvement, as I'm sure most of you are sick of hearing about by now. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. But what in the world is going on with Mom's disease? It just doesn't make any sense after reading some of the courses of disease that occur with women on this site. Many women who have had the "Full Monty" of chemotherapies week after week, that hammered them like a circus clown's oversize mallet, have metastases and recurrences in many cases.