Two weeks ago I went to Redwood City to Stanford's Outpatient Medical Center for my (currently) annual scan. These scans are kind of a big deal. Us Colon Clubbers call it scanxiety, the anxiety caused by the upcoming scan/scan/waiting for the results. While I had a colonoscopy 2 months ago to look for local recurrences, local recurrences are not very likely ~10%. Recurrences in my kind of cancer are typically found by CT imaging. Colon cancer likes to travel to the liver (favorite place) and lungs (second favorite) and the best way to look at those sites is via the CT scan (with contrast).
I got there early (6:45am for a 7:30am appt. you never know about Bay Area traffic in the morning), because that's how I roll. Got signed in, changed into scrubs, and waited in the prep room. Since I was getting a IV with contrast they had to start an IV. So I'm not sure what I've done to whom, but the Stanford nurses are 0 for 2 in starting IVs in me in 2014. It's really not that big of a deal, just somewhat amusing. The nurses always feel really bad. I guess with the number of IVs I've had over the last 24 months it's inevitable to have a couple not work out.
So, once she got the IV set and tested it, I waited a couple minutes and the rad tech came and got me. Remember, early appointments mean things are typically on time. I laid down in the bed of the CT scanner, the tech tested the IV again and then plugged me into the automated contrast plunger. I told the tech to check the connection because I had one leak on me once upon a time, so he did. They do a scouting scan first, then pump the contrast in (which feels really weird, like you're peeing you pants), and then two more slower scans (abdomen/pelvis and chest). Five minutes later all done. I chatted with one of the techs who recognized me (from the clinical study I did when I was going through radiation therapy) and then I was off to work.
In the April my Oncologist decided to leave Stanford, which was a little sad because him and I got on so well. But, I'm not on active treatment,so it really isn't that big of a deal. With that said, after my last scan he called me the evening of and told me the results. This time around I don't theoretically have an Oncologist. My last followup was with his Nurse Practitioner, who is super nice, but seemed hesitant to want to call me with the results (maybe MDs have more latitude in the rules than NPs). So with that in mind I decided to schedule my scan on Wednesday the 24th followed by a follow-up with the NP on Thursday the 25th. I didn't want to be waiting forever for the results. My plan was foiled about two weeks ago when the NP's office called and said they were going to have to reschedule my follow-up. Damn. I actually will not be seeing the NP until Oct 7th due to a business trip to Europe. So, I sent her a message, begged and pleaded, and she said she'd have someone call.
So, now that I've had you read four whole paragraphs you're probably wondering what the results were. Wednesday afternoon I got a call from one of the nurses. He told me everything is stable and there was nothing new to report. Good right? Yup that's what I was hoping to hear. I asked him to release the report so I could read it, he said he would as soon as the radiologist signed it. I felt a little indifferent, I mean I should be ecstatic, but I really wanted to read it myself. Wednesday evening goes by, no report. I send the nurse a quick reminder Thursday morning. Thursday evening still no report. By Thursday evening my head is going to bad places. Maybe the radiologist didn't sign something because he reviewed it again and found something or he wanted a second opinion on something that wasn't good. I spent much of Thursday evening thinking about how to go about getting a copy of the report if the Nurse doesn't release it Friday morning. I'll call the office at 9am Friday morning. Then if that doesn't work I'll call the Rad Onc's nurse (who is freaking awesome) to see if she can get me the report at 10am. I had my story all ready to go and 15 minutes before I get on the phone, I get an e-mail saying the report is released and a note from the nurse apologizing because everyone was off site on Thursday. So I finally put eyes on the report.
Reading a CT scan report is a little underwhelming. It doesn't say anywhere on there, "Congratulations you don't have cancer," so don't look for that. No doctor is going out on that limb. You look more for what it doesn't say than what it does say. 'New lesions', 'new nodules', 'new focus', 'growth', 'enlarging', etc... all those would be examples of bad things in a report. 'No new_____', 'no enlarging', 'stable', 'normal', 'patent', etc... are all things you like to see. The report was full of the later. So I'm good to go for another year. The odds are now on my side that I probably won't have to deal with this cancer again anytime soon. Wow. That sounded positive didn't it? What can I say? I'm a head case. Part of me feels if I talk to strongly about not having cancer I'll jinx the whole thing. What can I say I just don't want to tempt fate.
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