PET Scan News

April 8, 2025....I went into my normal chemo infusion appointment not knowing if I would be having chemo or not...wasn't sure if I should start my steroid 3 day regimentation as the decision for continued chemo had not been finalized yet, so I did start, just to be on the safe side. It's good that I did, because there was some confusion on the treatment plan on my part. I didn't realize that the PET scan was done early per doctor's request. Normally, it's done after the sixth chemo treatment. Initially, back in December that was the plan. During the first couple of chemo treatments, the plan was modified to a PET scan after four cycles, partly due to the number of all the different side effects that I was experiencing, and because the doctor wanted to know how I was responding to treatment sooner rather than later. 

Disappointed to find out that the doctor was off on the day of my infusion appointment and in my mind, the turning point to determine any more chemo treatments, they rescheduled a visit with the doctor for the very next day. The nurse practitioner (N.P) did a great job of explaining a lot of things, but I wanted to see an actual picture of my scans to see the difference. The N.P said that I am now considered BORDERLINE stage 4 due to the success of my treatment, and that I may still be a possible candidate for surgery. The oncologist still wants me to finish out #5 and #6 chemo treatments. At that point, three weeks later, they will do another PET scan and a breast MRI again. That will precede a consultation with the surgeon to see what my future options are. Could be a lumpectomy, could be a double mastectomy. So we have gone from NO chance of surgery, stage 4 and palliative care to POSSIBLE stage 3 and a chance for remission, depending upon what the breast oncology surgeon says at the consult.

Here is what my PET scan looks like, a side by side comparison of the breast tumor. The photo on the RIGHT is the before, the left screen is the latest PET scan. You can see on the right, that the tumor is almost filling the breast completely, and it is very bright, that's the radioactive tracer highlighting the tumor. The screen on the left is showing normal tissue with almost no radioactive tracer showing.

Here is the second area of concern...the left armpit area called the axillary. I had a tumor in one of the lymph nodes there. The tumor is marked with a little white arrow (your right) and it's lit up in a greenish color. This is the before:

before treatment

This is the after:

After treatment

There is no "lit" area in the armpit lymph nodes. That's a very good sign. 

After meeting with the doctor yesterday, I am possibly looking at a cure and not just palliative care where they try to hold the cancer at bay. He says that it's possible the radiologist "over read" the scans, meaning he interpreted malignant areas where there could have been inflammation rather than cancer. There was such a robust response to the chemo, that he's thinking perhaps I am borderline stage 3/stage 4. Very hopeful news! He wants me to have a consult with a breast oncologist surgeon at the University of Chicago. That's a two hour drive, but the center is rated 12th in the country and he says they are the cutting edge to the latest of treatments and aggressive in their approach to beating cancer. It's possible I can have surgery to cut out what's left of the remaining tumor. It would be possibly a double mastectomy but I wouldn't have to have PET scans every three months and I would still receive immunotherapy infusions for one year. I would be considered stage 3 at that point, which is rare, he said, to move from a more aggressive stage to a lesser stage. 

The other thing I would have to have done is a pulmonary scan, where they stick a camera down through your nose into your chest cavity. They put you to sleep for that, thank goodness! Because my cancer had spread into the center chest wall, they need to know if there are any cancer cells left even though they are not showing on the PET scan now. The steps to get all this done are a little confusing to me in the order which they will happen, but they are BIG steps towards a better diagnosis, that's encouraging.

I have been feeling terribly wiped out since the 5th treatment.  The nausea was extra bad this time. Usually I feel pretty good the first three days after treatment, but nope! Not this time. I'm having trouble eating anything. Things that tasted ok, like bananas, now make me gag. Certain textures make me gag. Dairy products taste very strange. Meat tastes nasty. My legs are feeling so rubbery! It's been almost a week and I can hardly stand on my legs, they feel so weak. 

Mentally, I've compartmentalized the negatives--that I'm stage 4, that even if we knock the cancer on its ass, it probably will come back in some other place, that I will have to have PET scans every three months, that I will have this disease hanging over my head for the remainder of my life and more morbid thoughts. I'm trying to replace those negatives with these possible new developments, but as the jury is still out on that, I won't know anything till after May 6th. I'm tired and exhausted of being ill. It's really wearing me down mentally. 

In the meantime, I'm dealing with the ever present nausea and fatigue. I have three medications that I take and they are helping the nausea a little but not as much as before. They are Zofran, Compazine, and Olanzipine. The one I take at night, Olanzipine, knocks me out completely the next day. I get up to try to eat, move around for a little while, then back to bed I go. It's driving me a little crazy. The doctor said he would put me in for fluids once again, so off to the hospital I went yesterday to get an IV. I hope it helps, so far no change in fatigue. It's been two days since the IV fluids, and I'm not any better...sigh....Will give it another couple of days to try and come out of it, and if not,  then I will call the doctor again. 

(A few days later....) Looks like I'm slo-w-w-l-y coming out of the fatigue. Whew! I'm back to working a couple of days a week subbing, which helps me forget how tired I am sometimes...On the days I don't work, I nap--a couple of times a day! Chemo #6, the last one, is April 29th. I'm still waiting to hear what the doctor from the University of Chicago, Dr. Betty Fan, will have to say. It's a waiting game much of the time these days...waiting for the side effects to diminish, waiting for bloodwork to be ok, waiting for the doctor to call, waiting for the next phase of treatment. 

Thank you for following along...I appreciate the support and any comments very very much!