Thursday, October 15, 2015

Bone Scan

Bone scan results: CLEAN as a whistle!!!!  So only the prostate cancer to deal with. Next up, radiation oncologist.   Whew!!!!!!!!  Short post.  Left laptop at home by accident.   More tomorrow.
It's time to celebrate right now.

7:00a.m. Friday:  Ok...so now I have my laptop.  Anatomy of a Bone Scan.  Now that was an interesting experience.  Imagine this -  Adult swaddling : You lay on your back with a blanket, folded in half, wrapped around your upper torso binding and holding your arms against your sides.  Then rubber bands (yes, large rubber bands) are put around your legs and feet.  All of this is designed to hold you perfectly still.  Very mummy like.  Then the moving drawer that you are laying on slides into a tube and for the next 23 minutes you breath very slowly holding perfectly still, like you have any other choice, until the machine has scanned every bone in your body.  But lest I forget, 2 hours before the scan you are injected with a vial of something that comes in a metal box.  It all looked very top secret and radioactive.  After the injection, then I had to drink volumes of liquid to make myself urinate.  It all seemed rather counter productive to inject me with something and then attempt to flush it out.  Just kidding.  I know the purpose of the injection.  The dye was to go to the places where the possible cancer was hiding out!

All in all, while a long, long day, it went rather quickly with all the appointments on time and everyone as usual was pleasant and caring.  I saw familiar faces, had familiar conversations.

Next up, my appointment with my radiation oncologist, Dr. Koontz.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Times up...and then I wait for 2 more weeks.

It seems like the last few months I am doing nothing but hurrying up and waiting.  I saw Dr. Zhang again today at the Duke Cancer Center to get the results of the MRI to see where we stand on the prostate cancer.  Good news is that there is no evidence of any tumor(s) other than the area that we were already aware of.  We did the MRI because there was a discrepancy between the physical exam and the biopsy results.  Bottom line, the biopsy results were accurate.  No surprise there.   YAY.

On the flip side, the MRI did show a lesion on the L5 vertebrae...oh boy.  So, in 2 weeks I have a bone scan on my back followed by another visit with Dr. Zhang.  Unless something really weird happens, at that visit we will make plans as to where we go from here.  It's mostly dependent on what the bone scan shows.  If there is cancer there, that will change everything.  No cancer there, then my decision for now will most likely be what type of radiation (EBRT vs Brachytherapy) to proceed with for the prostate.

The journey continues but I'm not alone in it so that helps tremendously.  Thank you to everyone for your prayers and words of support.  They are invaluable.

Vaccination date set

 This morning at 8 a.m. we began the process of trying to get an appointment date.  I had 3 appointments at the Duke Cancer Center so I was ...