Mets Day 1077: Awesome CT results

I just got the results of yesterday's CT scan, and the results are really, really good. The overall size of the cluster of tumors in my neck and shoulder have decreased by about 20% after three infusions of Opdivo. I'm doing a little happy dance here. This is the first time since my cancer was diagnosed that that any CT scan has detected a decrease in tumor size. I must say that I like this type of report far better than the other 20+ reports I've receved over the past three and a half years.

Before writing this post I texted the news to my family. The responses are like the Lego Movie theme song. Yay!

Here's the language from the findings section:

Since prior studies dated 2/10/2015, there is slightly decreased lymphadenopathy in the left posterior triangle, lower jugular chain, and anterior mediastinum. Index measurements are as follows: (outside study dated 1/8/2015 was reconstructed in the axial plane to provide index AP x TV measurements):
Largest level IV lymph node (22/68) measures 1.4 x 1.2 centimeter (previously 1.8 x 1.5 cm).
Largest level 5 lymph node (22/57) measures 1.2 x 0.9 cm (previously 1.5 x 1.8 cm).
Largest anterior mediastinal node (22/76) measures 1.0 x 0.8 cm (previously 1.1 x 0.5 cm).
No new or enlarging lymph nodes are seen.

I am so grateful to hear this news. I don't know whether the nivolumab drug will keep shrinking my tumors, or how long the effect will last, but I'll take all I can get. I'll of course stay on the clinical trial for as long as there are good results (or two years, whichever comes first).

I'll be curious to see how other metastatic bladder cancer patients are doing on this drug. I'm the first mets BC patient on this trial at Johns Hopkins, so hopefully the drug can provide a lot more patients with this kind of response.

I forwarded the reports to Drs. Apolo and Aragon-Ching, with this note:

Enclosed are the results of the first scan since I started the nivolumab clinical trial (three infusions so far). Yeah, I'm happy. I'll keep riding this horse as long as it will carry me. Next scan is 5/5/15. I'll keep you posted. Thanks again for your ongoing care.

They each responded within an hour ("awesome news" and "wonderful!").  I agree. Everything is awesome!