The Rib

OK I made my trip to the NCI and had the CT scans done. I could not take the contrast because during my last visit I had a small allergic reaction and they said because I hadn’t been premedicated this time they would not give it to me. So they did scans without it this time. I was a bit disappointed but they assured me they would be able to see what they needed to see. I also asked them to take a good look at the ribs on my right side.
I met with Dr. Bates and her boss Dr. Fojo and team after the scans and they confirmed that I had the rib metastasis…but the good news is that’s all they detected. I was very comfortable with that news I guess because I already knew about the rib.
The NCI technically can only treat while participating in a trial and Dr. Fojo started asking who I saw at home and I really don’t see anyone as I was travelling to Houston. He was mentioning radiation treatments but that would take several sessions and then brought up the RFA (Radio Frequency Ablation), it would be done in one session and could be curative in that area. He said he would arrange to have it done there by Dr. Brad Woods, the NCI’s top dog in RFA. He also took part in my surgery in June for the back tumor, so we’ve met. I have to wait for him to return from vacation but I expect to be up there towards the end of the month to get this thing taken care of.
I fully expected to be discussing IL2 during that visit but they said not yet. They take each situation as it presents itself and figure out what is best at that time. I’ll go along with that….for now.
So, the anxiety level is back down and I’m just waiting for a call to schedule the procedure. They will do full scans prior just to make sure that’s all I have again and hopefully I’ll get one more set of scans before they refer me back to my regular doctor.
My wife got her mamogram report, it was nothing, some sort of shadow or benign spot that’s been there in prior scans, so all is good there as well.
The battle continues…winning one skirmish at a time.