First PET Scan in Denver

Today we went in for the results of the scan.  If “glacial” growth in the mesothelioma in the pericardium is good, then I had a good report.  In fact, the tumor grew by only about a millimeter which was within the measurement error of the scans.  That is, they couldn’t say with certainty that the tumor had grown from May to August.  To me that was good news.  The bottom line is that they do not see any reason for intervention when the growth is so slow, and given that I am feeling better than I have at any time since my surgery a year ago, I totally agreed with that strategy.  I’ll go back in early October for a CT scan and blood work to see if there has been any change.  The purpose of the monitoring is to catch any increase in the growth rate of the tumor before I can detect any change in how I feel.  If the growth rate picks up, then we’ll have to consider more rounds of the same chemo I had in Temple or participation in a clinical trial.

One more thing.  When we visited the cancer center in June, the elevator was out of order, so we had to use the stairs to reach the second floor, and I was so winded by the climb that I had to wait a few minutes before checking in at the desk.  Today I purposefully took the stairs and found that I was not nearly as short of breath this time.  My body had made good progress in acclimating to the altitude in Denver.  I still get short of breath at times, but given that my right diaphragm doesn’t work properly, I expect that may always be a problem, and I am happy with the improvement I’ve had.