Another Little Bump In the Road- Why Not?

The PET Scan

I mentioned a few posts ago that Dr Docherty ordered a PET scan to see if there was any visible cancers anywhere else in my body. Along with that, I also had to have an MRI of my breasts done to see the tumors with more detail. 

Example PET Scan Image

A PET Scan (Positron Emission Tomography) is a radiation-based Xray of sorts that is taken of your entire body.  The images shown on a PET scan are similar to what the TSA sees when they scan your carry on bags at the airport (I came to this analogy on my own).  To receive the PET scan that I got, it was necessary fast for 12 hours and then receive an injection of a nuclear fluid.  The nurse at the radiologist's office told me that I was to have extremely light activity for the 24 hours prior to the scan. She said any prolonged activity would show up on the PET scan and may be misinterpreted as a tumor.  I will accept someone telling me to take it easy any day! But this test got better... When I got to the office the day of the test, the nurse gave me my injection, and then put me up in a recliner with soft, spa-like music in the background, turned down the lights, and covered me in a heated sheet where I had to lie still and relax for an hour. I really enjoyed this test, it was pretty awesome. Until she told me I had to put my phone away and couldn't text.  Apparently the repetitive motions of my thumbs would show up on the scan not only on my thumbs but on my forearms.  This shocked me... I still wonder if this was true or if the nurse was just annoyed at my frantic texting and Facebooking at 9am on a Tuesday morning.

Once I was sufficiently relaxed I got to go in for my test. The PET scan involved lying on a table while the table glided in and out of a donut shaped recepticle. This took about 15 minutes and then I was good to go home!

PS. That's not me... just a stock photo of a PET scan

Oh but wait... As I was putting my coat on to leave, I noticed a huge lump in the back of my throat that wasn't there when I had gotten there. It felt like I had swallowed a Cheerio and it was stuck in the back of my throat.  I walked back into the exam room and asked if that was a normal side effect of the test. The nurse not only said it was not normal, she rushed me back to my recliner and ran and got a doctor. Then the doctor came in with an epi-pen longer than my forearm.  This one moment was the scariest moment I had experienced during this entire breast cancer ordeal.  Whoa... hold on there, what are you doing with that???? Apparently the doctor thought that the lump in my throat was going to continue to swell until I could no longer breathe. Luckily this didn't happen.  The lump in my throat never got any bigger, it just got more annoying. They made me take a Benadryl and sit in the recliner for another 45 minutes to make sure the reaction didn't continue or get worse. I sat there and tried to swallow whole ice cubes and I drank about 5 cups of water trying to dislodge this lump in my throat. No use. It was going to stay and hang with me for the next day or 2.  If this was the worst thing I had to endure, I was cool with that.

The best part of all is that later that week, Dr. Dougherty called to tell me the PET scan was all clean. No other cancers for me to worry about. I was really beginning to love Dr. Dougherty. He always had good news for me.

The MRI

The MRI that I was scheduled to take was very interesting. This MRI was specifically looking at my breasts.  Getting a breast MRI is quite interesting. The machine looks like a donut shaped recepticle, just like the PET scan machine. But because they specifically wanted to see my breasts, I had to change position to allow for optimal imaging. For this MRI, I had to lie on the table on my stomach and there were 2 cut outs in the table... one for each breast to hang through. You are probably visualizing this and I have to tell you, it really was that funny looking.

Besides the funny positioning, this test went off without a hitch and I was soon back at work going about business as usual. 

I was not so lucky with my MRI results. I received a call from Windsong Radiology that the MRI results were not good. The doctor had found a 4th mass in my left breast.  All they knew from this test is that there is a 4th mass. They would not know if it was benign or malignant until they did the biopsy.  Since the mass was not visible on the mammogram or ultrasound that I did previously, they would have to do the biopsy while being MRI'd. They call it MRI-Assisted biopsy. This entailed me getting back on the MRI table with the boob holes and having a surgeon underneath  the table biopsying me.  As if the initial MRI with my boobs hanging through the table wasn't awkward enough, I had no idea how this was going to work. 

I called Dr Lindfield with these results and discussed options. We determined that since I was doing a full mastectomy anyway, I could forego the biopsy. Dr Lindfield would biopsy the mass in whole once all the breast tissue is removed.  I feel very confident in this decision.  I feel pretty strongly that this mass was indeed another cancerous tumor and that it is the same strain of cancer, Invasive Ductal Carcinoma, that I have in the other 3 tumors.  However, since it was so small that it didn't show up on mammography or ultrasound, I am certain it is too early to have spread to any other tissues or lymph nodes. Dr. Lindfield can verify that for sure at the time of my mammogram.

Funny, finding out I had a 4th mass, probably a 4th cancerous tumor, really didn't phase me much. Why not? When you have 3, why not 4?  I always liked even numbers better anyway. It's like kids, once you have a few, what's a few more? Actually, no, it's not like kids at all. Once you have a few of them, STOP while you are ahead...