Today was radiation treatment #17. They're winding down, only 5 more scheduled! I've mentioned I wasn't having any side effects, but now I've lost some of my taste buds. Not a big deal, but I really like my spicy, flavorful food, and I'm having a hard time tasting any of it. It seems like I need to eat almost constantly to try to maintain my weight, and not tasting all the flavor takes some of the fun out of it!
We met with the medical/hematology oncologist later in the morning to review results of the most recent tests. The most definitive answer we got was that I seem to be an enigma. The PET scan results had shown areas of cellular activity in both lungs and the 12th thoracic vertebra, which prompted the additional scans yesterday. The bone marrow biopsy came back negative, so that's a very good thing. All the blood and urine tests seem to be moving us away from any kind of lymphoma, another good thing, and all the results are indicating it's not multiple myeloma, which is incurable, so another very good thing. The doctor said she was surprised about the bone marrow results, she'd expected it to come back positive, and she was surprised about the the other areas of activity. Seems like she was expecting the opposite of what we got. They don't know what the spots in the lungs are. They're too small to biopsy, so we'll just have to monitor them right now and re-test often. The 12 thoracic vertebra has a lesion in the bone, and appears to be different from the tumor in the neck. So we'll get a biopsy of that area and try to determine what it is. If it's determined to be another plasma cytoma, we should be able to radiate it and hopefully be done with it.
The doctor really does seem to be puzzled because I show absolutely no symptoms of having any other issues. She'd expect pain and some loss of strength in the legs with the vertebra issue, and would expect shortness of breath and difficulty breathing with any lung issues. No problems in either area. They're presenting my case again next Thursday at their conference to get input from cancer doctors in all areas, so I keep getting a lot of attention.
All in all, the results were positive, leading us away from some really bad possibilities. I'm still feeling good, arms getting stronger every day and upbeat and positive!