Once again my PET scan results were bleak. The report stated that everything is growing and there are lots of new spots. Most concerning was that there are lesions in the left side of my face--so does that mean my facial pain is from cancer?--and that both adrenal glands are involved. Ugh. I was so hoping for some good news from this scan! But I determined that I wasn't going to assume the worst until I talked to my doctor from Mexico, because last time (three months ago) we were practically preparing for the end after getting the gloomy PET scan report only to get very hopeful, positive news from the doctor. Most importantly, I feel great except for the facial pain: I still have no bone pain, and I feel stronger and better than I have in the past year! How does that make sense if the cancer is spreading heavily?The follow-up procedures were the same: blood work and ultrasound first thing in the morning on day one; meeting with the doctor to get results and recommendations for further treatment on day two. The blood work results showed that the cancer marker went up 500+ points; this is the first time it has gone up since the end of my three weeks of treatment at Hope 4 Cancer the beginning of March. Up to this point it had been dropping 500-600 points every six weeks. Blood work also showed some stress on my liver, but nothing serious. This is due to all the pain meds I've had to take for my trigeminal nerve nueralgia, so it's expected. The ultrasound results were positive with all my organs looking completely normal. When I met with Dr. Romero, he again was positive and reiterated what he said three months earlier--he believes the PET scan and cancer marker indicate that the cancer that is left in my bones is very active, but he does not believe all the activity is from the cancer growing or spreading. I asked him about the lesions in my face and the uptake in the adrenals and if PET scans show things other than the presence of cancer. He said that PET scans can also show high levels of inflammation, which makes perfect sense with my face...the trigeminal nerve is obviously highly inflamed! Regarding the adrenal glands, he said that they looked perfectly normal in the ultrasound, so he believes they just have some inflammation, too, but are not cancerous. So I am holding my own, but Dr. Romero did want to change my treatment somewhat, because we want to see more positive results with cancer disappearing on the PET scan and the cancer marker continuing to go down instead of up. I will continue with another three months of gcMAF injections as well as a new protocol of Mistletoe injections along with a couple new supplements. He also recommended doing my treatments at home more often. I have come across Mistletoe (yes, the Christmas kissing plant) being an effective cancer treatment in my research, so it wasn't a total surprise to me. I give myself a Mistletoe injection every three days. Hopefully the combination of gcMAF and Mistletoe will be powerful enough to get me over the hump to seeing actual improvement in test results. I am also expected to follow up again in three months since I am on the new protocol. Three months would be Christmastime, which isn't ideal. If I push it out to January, we can bypass the holidays, plus Bob's vacation will start over, allowing him to accompany me again.
The images and numbers left my family and I with feelings of trepidation and concern probably best illustrated by Rose in the car while we were driving to the airport. She asked me, "So, if all the news is bad, does that mean.....?" I said, "Go ahead and say it; it's okay." Well, she didn't say it, but I knew she meant, "Does that mean you're probably going to die?", so I replied, "Yes, that's probably what it means." She didn't say anything else--just put her ear buds in and listened to her music, but I reached over and took her hand, and we held hands almost the whole way to the airport.
What is undeniable is the way I feel--which, again, is better and stronger than I've felt in the past year--and the fact that I have no bone pain. If there was as much cancer in my body as the PET scan seems to indicate, then I should be experiencing a lot of pain in several areas of my body. We are focusing on these positive indications, I am hitting the treatments a little harder again, and we are continuing to trust our Heavenly Father who is full of compassion and grace
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