CT positive for earwax

Yesterday I had my first CT scan at Huntsman. I've lost count of how many scans I've had during my cancer journey, but I'm pretty sure it's over 30. I laid down on the table and asked the tech if she was going to run scans before and after the contrast, and she said that they usually didn't do that to keep down the level of radiation. I then asked her to verify that I was getting scans of the neck, chest, abdomen and pelvis. She said that my orders didn't say anything about the neck. I told her that the neck should be included, and asked her to call Dr. Maughan to confirm. In a remarkably efficient performance, within 10 minutes she spoke with Dr. Maughan's office, then Dr. Maughan, then scheduling, then insurance, and got all the required approvals. I smiled as she then proceeded to scan my neck and chest without contrast, then injected me with the contrast and scanned my chest, abdomen and pelvis. No charge for the extra millisieverts. As usual, the tech reminded me to drink lots of fluids for the rest of the day. As usual, I went to Five Guys and drank three liters of Diet Coke with my lunch. (I'm still participating in a personalized proof-of-concept clinical trial to demonstrate that drinking Diet Coke offsets any calories consumed during the same meal. The trial has been running for more than thirty years. Further research is needed.)

This afternoon Dr. Maughan's nurse called me with the results: stable disease. I asked whether the  nodule in my lung was still there and showed uptake, and whether my superclavicular node was hot. The nurse paused, then admitted that she hadn't actually read the scans but was just passing along the message from Dr. Maughan. I asked her to send me the readings so I could see where things stood, and she did.

I found that three different radiologists had read my scans: One for the pelvis and abdomen, another for the chest, and another for the neck. The pelvis and abdomen scans were unremarkable, except for the observation that my neobladder had an "irregular contour." That's how they do it in Chicago, bub. The chest scan noted "irregular nodular opacity" in my upper right lobe, unchanged from my CT scan in September 2018. The node next to my left carotid artery continues to measure 13 mm, but it is not "hot" for hypermetabolic activity (e.g., active cancer growth). This is the same node that was showing hypermetaboloc activity in April 2018. The rest of the chest was unremarkable for cancer. The neck scan showed my supraclavicular cluster of nodes that showed hypermetabolic activity on my PET scan on November 28, 2018 to be the same size (1.4 cm x 1.1 cm), but did not show hypermetabolic activity on this scan. Most critically, the radiologist noted "debris within the left external auditory canal." Earwax! Confirmed by CT scan! Nurse, get me a Q tip, stat!

Bottom line for this scan: No active cancer. No new tumor growth. No shrinking, either. I'll stay the course with my nivolumab infusions and ongoing scans.