CT scan inconclusive

Well, okay then. CT scan on Friday, report today from my beloved oncologist. It seems that I have gone from being a Stage IV kidney cancer patient, to being a Stage III. Maybe. Unclear how that happened, except that the two cancerous lymph nodes between my kidneys have disappeared. WTF? Gone, gone, gone. Also the two kidney stones on the right side also disappeared, gone, gone, gone. No lymph involvement, no Stage IV. It’s pretty simple that way. But where did they go?

5 Lung “nodules” are stable, no new ones, not growing. May be bronchopneumonia or airways disease (I do have “asthma, cough variant”, so yeah, I have airways disease.) No lymph nodes acting up in my lungs, in any case. Cancer? No one knows, and they are too small to biopsy. No change is very good news here.

No significant change in the tumor on my left kidney, which is the source of all this mess. Changed shape but not resultant size. Same with the right kidney.

Turns out, when I compare todays report with the one from last July, there is a question about whether or not the left kidney even has cancer; maybe it is a benign tumor, suggests the radiologist from July.  No way to tell with a biopsy, because those cells are often intermixed with cancer cells.  Murky.

There is no report saying that the right kidney even has cancer. The urologist/surgeon who went up there with a tiny camera trying to bust out the kidney stone last summer said that he saw cancer in the inner calyx of the kidney, but it’s not in his report. Eric and I both heard him.  Doctors since then have proceeded with this as fact.

So who the fuck knows what’s going on. Too murky for my comfort, and again the suggestion to remove the left kidney is on the table.

I’ll know a little more in a few days when my oncologist makes some phone calls and gets back to me. Then we’ll talk about all this. First time I’ve seen the CT results in their complete form. Take away on that: always ask for the complete reports. They are yours, it’s your body and your health, so get them and study them. Look up what you don’t understand, or ask your doctor.

Eric and I have a few ideas for how to proceed.  It all depends on additional information and if that isn’t possible, then we will simply hunker down and wait for 6 months, see what happens then.  And keep on doing everything that we’re doing.

It appears to us that some of what we have been doing has had a positive impact, although what and where isn’t clear yet.

We shall sail on with a steady hand for now.