Mets Day 825: Good CT scan

Today I went in for another CT scan at NIH. Unlike many other times, today NIH was running efficiently, with minimal wait times for my blood work or scan. My follow-up meeting with Dr. Apolo was not until the afternoon, so I had lunch with Cynthia and an old Bethesda Italian eatery called Pines of Rome. I returned to meet with Dr. Apolo, who was delighted to report that my scan showed no further spreading of the cancer. In fact, she said that the node in my neck appeared to have shrunk slightly in size since the last scan. It was as good as a report as I could hope for.

She also said that there was some promising progress on treatment for solid tumor mets bladder cancer. Clinical trials on patients with distant solid tumors in organs, or with nodes over 1.5 cm in size, were showing success rates of over 50% in patients whose cancers were expressing a certain protein, and 10-15% success in others. She said that NIH was starting its own trial in the next few months, and that if my disease progressed, I'd be a good candidate. But she was quick to add that it would be far better for me if I never entered the trial, because that would mean that my cancer had not spread any further.

Dr. Apolo said that, although my cancer had no shown any growth for nearly a year, it was too early to talk about complete remission. I still have an enlarged node in my neck, which we know contains mets bladder cancer. She said that it was very rare (but not unheard of) for mets bladder cancer to  stop spreading, and for enlarged nodes to shrink back to normal. But I shouldn't get my hopes up yet, however, as it took 15 months for my BC to travel from my abdomen to my neck. But the longer I go without further spreading being detected, the more unusual my case becomes. And I'm ok with that.

She said that she would do another CT scan in October (and ordered a PET scan on top of it), and if those were negative, she would do scans in January and April 2015. If those continued to be negative, she would be ok with going to 6 months scans. That seems a be far off in the distance for me. I'm keeping my horizon limited to three month intervals, and take the news as it comes. 

I'm grateful for the three month renewal on my lease of life, and grateful that I don't have to enter another unpleasant round of therapy. While I was waiting, I was reading The Fault In Our Stars, and I'm grateful that neither I nor my loved ones will have to deal anytime soon with the prospect of active metastatic cancer hollowing out my body.  Eventually we all will see the past, present and future as we pass the three faces of Cerberus, but not me in the next few months.