Happy holidays has a whole new meaning | yosoyrosa's Blog

This past 2 weeks have been busier than ever, so apologies if you were waiting on an update.  When shopping with Dad after Thanksgiving, I took advantage of deep discounts this year to buy a WII sport with WII fit, again hoping that having a new distraction around the house will give us something to do together away from the ugly news about the economy, job losses and gloomy forecast for 2009.  In addition to the holidays, so much attention has been on puppy training, play time and all those short walks outside during the day, the hardware was still sitting in the box waiting to be installed until just last night.  The season has been exhausting.

Monday the 22nd my husband's cousin took him to the follow-up CT scan, and we heard on Wednesday morning that our doctor still represented our case to the tumor board at the university.  The coordinator told us the doctor's been very sick past few days, but hopefully he'll be able to call us with the results shortly.  By Thursday morning we had the fax from the imaging center, but still no call - our hopes for good news for christmas disappeared.

CT Abdomen and Pelvis:  Contiguous 5mm axial images from lung base to illiac crests with and without contrast.  Liver surface is nodular suggesting cirrhosis, which reconfirmed earlier findings.  Lipiodol seen related to most recent hypodense focus observed on CT scan 11/3, and is adjacent to previous chemoembolization.  Good news: No residual hypervascularity is noted surrounding these two foci of Lipiodol disposition- which translates to no new blood supply to the tumors.  No note of any downstaging though...

The report continues stating the 4 hypervascular foci from earlier scans are once again noted as "suspicious" and sizes given appear bigger.  The findings also stated more prominent than on prior studies which may be due to differences in technique although another focus of HCC cannot be entirely excluded.  This is scary; could it be that the areas that didn't appear to be viable during the angio are really sites where cancer is growing?  

Then there's the CT of the chest with contrast - this report calls out two small stable noncalcified pulmonary nodules in the lungs, with recommended follow up in 6 months for evaluation of stability (growth).  Could it be the cancer has spread to lungs? Of course it could be, but it could also be scar tissue from the years of smoking, so how do we know for sure? Suddenly the holidays could use a little extra helping of cheer.

Time to take the puppy out, and tomorrow will be a series of phone calls to the university for answers.