PET Scan Imagery

Wow, that went easier than I thought. The only issue is will the pics be large enough to be visible posted to this blog.

~~~~~~~~~

I was diagnosed sometime in August after seeing a Doctor of Osteopathy in June or July who sent me home to take Prilosec OTC. I’m more philosophically in tune with a DO than I am with an MD, but it looks like this time they failed me.

When I saw my new PCP for the first time, he wasted no time referring me to a GI doc. This doc performed an EGD and took several biopsies. Unfortunately, the system lost my biopsies and I had to have the procedure repeated.

Then, I underwent my first PET Scan on 8/27/07. This is what they found. The circled areas are the cancerous sections. You will see some spots that normally take up the radioactive sugar, including the bladder way down below.

Don’t look too close; privacy you know. As the Japanese say, "Nudity is often seen but never looked at!" :-) It's not often that I appear this naked on the Internet! And if you've seen those videos, I can assure you that they are fake. They photoshopped pictures of my head to some other guy's body. Some lucky guy's body! :-D

~~~~~~~~~

“Dramatic Improvement!” As you can see from this 10/19/ 07 pic, there has been a significant reduction in the size of the tumor in the stomach. I’ve circled the areas where the cancer had metastasized but is no longer active. Yay!

So all I have to deal with is the circled stomach tumor and the lower esophagus.

~~~~~~~~~

This is the 12/14/07 pic that shows some regression, the tumor is somewhat larger after all that chemo. This is the scan that solidified the decision to get the Radiation Oncologist involved.

But otherwise a pretty clear image, wouldn't you say?

~~~~~~~~~

Then there's this one. This is the recent, 3/21/08, PET Scan. Notice that the tumor itself is almost gone, if not gone altogether, but there are multiple sites of cancer all over my body. From the circled hip area down near the bladder, to my right side (the left side of the pic) liver area, to the circled lymph node up where they had been active from the first pic.

Now, going from little bit of tumor in the 12/14 scan to the cancer all over the 3/21 scan, something has happened. What could that be?

One of the things that I, and others, have complained about is the efforts by the allopaths to reduce our immune system’s ability to fight off cancer by dosing us with chemicals that are supposed to kill our cancer but actually let’s some of the drug-resistant cancers to grow.

If you recall, I was so sick, my blood levels were so bad, that they couldn’t even give me chemo the last two or three weeks in a row. So let’s see, a severely weakened immune system, an increase in the amount of cancer sites; I’m starting to see a pattern here.

So, only the future can tell what will happen with this cancer. I’ll continue to do what I can to fight it off. I'll be available to take any questions you may have, although Ben and I may run out to a Mexican restaurante!

Kunolunkwa, y te quiero!