August 1st, 2016

Well, my PET and CT scan results weren't perfect, but they could have been a whole lot worse too! All but one of the lymph nodes they've been tracking are unchanged or smaller since the last scan I had, back in the end of March. One of them is a little larger and more PET active, but not by much. So, yet again, my scans are a bit ambiguous and we have to wait to see what happens. I'll have more scans in eight weeks, after another two rounds of chemo. It still isn't the 'all clear' I really want, but it is also a much more manageable result than many people with DSRCT ever get. I'm extremely fortunate to be getting closer to two years after diagnosis at all, much less in this good of shape. I can still ride rollercoasters, play disc golf, work on landscaping, write, and do pretty much anything else (that doesn't involve lifting more than 40 pounds, at least). As much as I might get annoyed at yet another scan that isn't perfect, I'm also immensely grateful for how well treatment is going right now.

I'll be continuing my current regimen of maintenance chemo--two infusions on Wednesdays and a pill each evening--for at least another eight weeks. Since several of the lymph nodes they're tracking actually decreased, it seems likely that the chemotherapy i'm doing now is making some difference, which is great! It's even quite possible that the one larger lymph node is actually trending down now despite being larger than it was on the scans from March; it may have grown in the time between the scan in March and the start of this current chemo regimen in June. The alternative of course is that the lymph node is cancerous and currently growing, but the next scan in eight weeks will give us a better picture of what's actually happening right now, while I'm going through this phase of treatment. Until the next scan in eight weeks, there's not much else to do but keep on going a day at a time.