12

I just got back from my meeting with the doctor. He said the CAT scan looked good. Based on the results, I will get 12 rounds of chemo (woohoo) and then radiation treatment after that. It is what I had hoped for, and expected. The super results would have been no radiation, but that was always very, very unlikely. The bad results would have been 14 or 16 rounds of chemo. So, I am really happy it is what it is! This means I will get my last chemo treatment May 2. Then I'll have 4 weeks off, and sometime in June I'll start radiation treatment, which will last for about a month.

The lymph node masses in my chest are still shrinking, which is good. The one big mass is down to about 6 cm (it was 7 before and 14 in the beginning), another mass that was 3 cm is down to 1.5 cm. 1 cm is normal. I asked why the big one hadn't shrunk more, and he said there is a lot scar tissue there that could take years to go away.

I have also been doing some research about what might be causing my lung irritation. I asked how he knew that it was not "Bleomycin-induced pneumonitis" - I bet doctors hate the Internet sometimes :-) Bleomycin is one of the chemo drugs I get and it can, in some cases, cause pretty serious lung problems. He explained that they look at a number of factors, how the patient feels, how the lungs sound, xray, CAT scan and the lung test I get next week. So far, the only sign of any lung problem is how I feel, everything else looks and sounds normal. So that's good. He also said that for them to decide to stop the Bleomycin treatment, my lungs would essentially have to be so bad that they could hear me wheezing and gasping as soon as I walked in the door. I guess its what you call the lesser of two evils.

All in all it was a very reassuring meeting. And best of all, I can start counting down!