CT results

Randy tried to record the scans as they came up, but it is against Hipa and other laws, so he had to delete them.  Except he didn't delete them off of his "recently deleted" album, so we thought we had skipped around that.  Oh, how we giggled and wrung our hands in triumph!  Alas, he didn't end up getting a good shot to compare to the one from January.  But...Sue sent me an email saying she hoped that I had reception and that her first pass through of the scans showed that the tumor had shrunk.  She was so excited to email me!  We got our hopes up.

We had to wait for about an hour before going in to our appointment, so we thought for sure that the results would be in from Radiology.  However, they weren't yet, so since Caden was going to get nausea meds and more fluids for the next hour, she went to see another patient while waiting for the report to come through.  One hour later, the report was still not in- now three hours since the scans were taken.  She told us that that was such a good sign, because she usually gets paged immediately if there is a problem.  We were really getting our hopes up!

And then she called Radiology...

January 20th, the tumor measured approximately 177 x 132 x 128 mm.  Today it measures approximately 163 x 114 x 99 mm.  Because the tumor has shrunk so much, there was a much better view (and space) for the liver.  We can now see a questionable spot in his liver, near the edge where it rested against the massive tumor.  One that very well could have been there the whole time, but that we couldn't see before.  We also don't know if it has grown despite the chemo, or if it really was there the whole time.  And if the chemo has had an effect on it, if this is the shrunk size, or the same as before.  This "new" tumor measures 24 x 16 x 13 mm.  It has us leaving the much anticipated scan results appointment with even more questions than when we went in- questions that we can never have answered.  This adds to both the surgery time next week, and the severity of Caden's prognosis.

We were also shown the two spots that were questionable last month, in his pelvis.  They are still there and still questionable, but because it looks as if one of them has shrunk, we are lead to believe they are, in fact, cancer.

We are happy to see that the tumor has shrunk.  At least we know that he hasn't suffered agonizingly for nothing.  We'll meet with Surgery tomorrow to find out a little more about our March 9th.  Sue looked at us with her serious face and told us it would be a long day.  We knew it would be when we thought there was only one tumor to deal with.  Now we have a possibility of four.  And that is only the stuff that can be picked up by CT.  Who knows what they'll find once they have him opened up.

Cancer sucks.