I can't keep it to myself any longer... Last week I had an appointment with my California oncologist. After the usual oohs and ahhhs and shaking of his head in disbelief, we got down to business and I updated him on the last 6 weeks. He seemed to get excited and wanted a CT scan. I have one planned in DC for the 3 month interval. He said OK and still wanted me to get a quick chest X-ray for the hell of it.
He called me with the results:
My lungs did not show any tumors on the X-ray!!!
This was stage 4 lung cancer that spread. The largest tumor was 3.6cm. All gone (almost?)! He suspected that from my round 1 results. I am not too sure of the preliminary round 2 results though. X-rays are not as good as CT or MRI scans. But it is great news in any case. I have lung cancer on the ropes and I am landing punches. Let's hope my opponent is not doing the "Rope-A-Dope".*
Next we'll want to see how my gumball machine is doing. In the beginning, I had a couple dozen tumors in my brain. The largest was 2.6cm and 1.6cm after round one. I'll know for sure how round 2 ends in a few weeks when I get my scans in DC.
I was celebrating a little until I read that less than 2% of the stage 4 lung cancer patients survive past 5 years. Unfortunately, mine is a pretty bad stage 4. Though, I am hitting the benchmarks for the survivors.
BTW, the lowest survival estimate I originally had was 4 months from initial diagnosis. I just past that and speeding towards the average, which was still less than a year.
albert
*Rope-a-dope is a boxing fighting style used most famously by Muhammad Ali (who coined the term) in the Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman. The idea is for the boxer to lie on the ropes of a boxing ring, conserve energy and allow the opponent to strike him repeatedly in hopes of making him tire and open up weaknesses to exploit for an eventual counter-attack.
