#484

that my friends is a lot of chatter...i have updated this blog 484 times...and you all just keep coming back for more. it must be addicting-kinda like general hospital!!!


i am sure you are all waiting for the results of the PET SCAN.


well, here is where it gets odd. the reason we did the PET was to find "hot" spots which would indicate that the new tumor was the lymphoma...the PET scan came back "cold". infact. the interpretation at the bottom of the page says: THERE IS NO EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST A METABOLICALLY ACTIVE TUMOR.


THIS IS GOOD...RIGHT? i guess we are in this wierd gray zone. part of us wants to jump up and down with joy because the tumor is NOT B-cell lymphoma (so take a moment now and celebrate)...the other part of us need to focus on what the tumor IS and why is it growing and causing him grief (party is over).


SO...where does that put us exactly? back to see a surgeon is where it puts us. more tests and more biopsies and more wondering. the oncologist said that it could be a number of different things and when we questioned "like what" his response was to list a few idea's off the top of his head:


it could be a bleed

it could be a lipoma (fatty tissue tumor)

it could be a mutant (my wording) lymph node

it could be a secondary cancer that doesn't show up on the PET...that was the one that got us.


last year they thought that his chest tumor was a lipoma and when they did the biopsy to make sure it turned out to be a relapse of his lymphoma...lets pray that we are not dealing with a second cancer and that this tumor is just a fluke.

we can't get in to see the surgeon until november 7th (happy anniversary tim and tammy) and that will just be the consult...then we will need to schedule the biopsy and then we will have to wait for the results. (my husband calls that the co-pay conspiracy) just another typical month in the life of the dewalts. lets just hope that no new tumors show up and that tims other issues stay stable. we are jumping right along toward thanksgiving pretty quickly.

i think that if i were in charge...i could wrap this whole thing up in a couple of days instead of a couple of weeks or more. it is just me or has this been going on for a LONG TIME??

that will wrap it up for tonight...we will stay on schedule with our monday morning updates and if anything changes or develops we will certainly pass it along.

thanks for checking in

tim and tammy