Appointment Report

As most of you know, I had my first doctor's appointment at Georgetown this past Wednesday. Unfortunately, it didn't really solve anything, but it certainly wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination. Apparently, my doctor thinks I may not need radiation. If this hits you as a surprise, know that you are in good company, because the news pretty much knocked me out of my chair! As you can imagine, this leaves me just a tad apprehensive because I would rather go after this thing aggressively--better safe than sorry.

What makes this possibility more palatable is the fact that they've got this scan (I don't know how new it is) called a PET scan that, when paired up with a regular CT scan, generally gives a really good report on whether or not there is any cancer. I know very few details about this procedure except that I do know it involves injecting me with a small amount of radioactive material that is attached to proteins and they basically search out and attach themselves to any abnormal cells that may be present in the body. So after this stuff has been given a chance to work its way through my body (about an hour) then the scan picks up the location of the abnormal cells. Since the PET scan oftentimes gives a false positive report, they like to match up the image with a regular CT scan and that gives a pretty accurate report. Even if it turns out to be negative, my doctor is proposing that I get this PET/CT scan combo done every six months to stay ahead of anything that might be there.

So that's the scoop. They essentially want to start over from the beginning so that means looking at the films from pre-surgery (in February) as well as the pathological slides from the surgery. Also, they also want me to see the Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) doctor at the hospital which I will be doing next Wednesday. Then the scans on Thursday. Following that, all my medical info will be presented by my doctor at their weekly cancer board meeting to basically decide what kind of treatment I should get. In case you are wondering what a cancer board is, it is the meeting of several doctors from a variety of specialties at Georgetown who work with cancer patients--for example, my radiation oncologist, an ENT, and others that I don't even know about yet.

In other fun news, my work softball team that I am manager/coach for won again on Thursday night to boost our record to 3-0. We beat the Dept. of State, 8-3. Our defense was quite good and for those of you who aren't familiar with softball, it's really tough to hold opponents to 3 runs! Anyway, next week we play against the Office of Government Ethics. I'll keep y'all posted.