PET scans are emotional roller coasters. Everyone obviously wants rainbows and unicorns but trust me when I tell you that during the anticipation period, it’s all worry and dark despair. A lot of bargaining and fortunetelling occurs. “Let it just not be BAD news.” “If I could just see a little improvement. It doesn’t have to be much.” “If it’s bad news, the doctor will take us into his office.” “If it’s bad news, the doctor will socialize with us first.”
You know what I’d like? I’d like to turn the PET monitor away from the patient. I think it is impossible to ask a patient not to look but they really shouldn’t.
We had to wait until early afternoon last Thursday to get our PET scan results. Ken kept asking me if I had gotten the details. I hadn’t, but I think he wanted me to know so he could try to read my face.
The doctor came over to Ken’s chemo lounge and said something like “Let’s talk about your treatment” but he couldn’t find a chair. He wandered around a bit and then stole one from the nurses’ station, sat down and rolled over to us. He has a surprising amount of charm, which I mostly forget when he’s not in front of us. I guess he’s doomed to be forever linked to CANCER and everything about that is negative.
He jumped right in, holding the report in his hand. It’s mostly good news: The iliac lymph nodes are clear of cancer and the scrotal tumors have shrunk some. The doctor said to Ken, “That’s good. You should be smiling.” On the not-bad-news front, the primary rectal tumor is basically unchanged.
The doctor is proposing a change in treatment. He said that surgery is out for now because Ken would have to have about a one month chemo break before and after surgery. According to the doctor that opens a big risk for the cancer to spread to other organs. Instead of surgery, the doctor proposed radiation and chemo combined.
The plan is for Ken to have five days of radiation and a two day break, then five days of radiation, etc. While he’s getting radiation, he’ll either be wearing the chemo pump and getting 5FU infused OR he can take 6 or 8 chemo pills daily. The good thing about the chemo pill is that he can still go into the office which is important for his mood. The bad thing about the pill (besides the fact that it requires special authorization from his insurance company) is that it is remarkably expensive. We have a 20% copay, which means that we could spend roughly $1,400 on PILLS. I am beyond grateful that we have the means to pay.
