This is a poodle health update, and let me begin at the end and say, “it’s all good.” As longtime readers will know, the month of August has always been somewhat of a speedbump on my life’s journey, dating all the way back to when I was 8 and was run over by a car in August of 1974. Bad things have, historically, piled up in this summer month that for some reason I associate with the color magenta. And, living in the Southern California desert’s Coachella Valley, it’s the month that makes you question your life choices with average daytime highs around 112 degrees Fahrenheit and overnight “lows” in the 90s. We always say: it’s a dry heat! But really, that’s no help.
This year we bucked the historical trend. Oh… not for heat. I can’t give you the exact figures, and I can’t be bothered to look them up, but it felt like the hottest summer since I moved here 19 years ago. Now, Fall is upon us. It’s not sweater weather yet – this week will see highs in the upper 90s; for Palm Springs, we call that a cooling trend. Soon it will be time for ghosts and goblins, turkey, and Christmas trees.
At the beginning of the month, it looked like we were on track for another health curveball. What doctors are calling a “cardiac event” landed me in the ER under observation for a day. But subsequent tests during the month ruled-out any coronary disease, and even showed that, setting aside some mild and probably age-related ischemia (restricted blood flow), my heart was in great shape.
Then came that CT scan, routine for someone with lung cancer treated with radiation. The initial reading was that the tumor, which lives on the upper lobe of my right lung, had grown in size. Dr. Patel, my pulmonologist, and Dr. Ahmad, my oncologist, were in agreement that this was a troubling development, because it meant that either they had not “gotten all the cancer” during my radiation treatment last September, or the cancer had outsmarted them, hidden for a while, and come back. A PET (positron emission tomography) scan was ordered.
During a PET scan, a small injection of radioactive tracer is made via an IV (and you know how I love those!), and this causes areas of increased metabolic activity (indicating cancer) to “light up” when scanned. The whole thing takes about two hours. I had the scan last Friday. And here is the report I received yesterday:
There are no enlarged or tracer avid axillary, hilar or mediastinal lymph nodes. No tracer avid lung nodules are identified. Significantly decreased size of the right upper lobe lung nodule now measuring 1.4 x 0.9 cm without hypermetabolism (axial CT image 162), previously measuring 2.3 cm. The heart is not enlarged and there is no pericardial effusion. There is no pulmonary consolidation, pleural effusion or pneumothorax.
FINDINGS:
- Decreasing size of the right upper lobe lung nodule when compared to prior examination without hypermetabolism likely representing an infectious or inflammatory etiology.
- No suspicious hypermetabolism elsewhere in the body to suggest additional sites of disease.
What this means in plain English (don’t worry, I had to have my doctors interpret it for me as well) is my tumor has shrunk in size, which was the goal of radiation treatment. The growth in size they were seeing is being attributed to scarring around the site that was irradiated last year, an artifact of the radiation itself. Further, there are no signs of the cancer spreading, or having spread, to other parts of the body.
That is outstanding news! Combined with a neurology check up that found HIV is well under control, with lab work confirming I have 979 T Cells and an undetectable viral load (fewer than 20 copies of HIV per milliliter of blood), and PML is all but dormant and limited only to the damage already done when it was active, this actually turned out to be one of the best Augusts on record for me!
It’s not a “clean bill of health,” as I have been referred to a cardiologist to track down the origin of that “cardiac event,” and I have ongoing issues with my prostate and urinary tract, but my primary care provider, Dr. Rodriguez, describes these as typical things for a 60-year-old, mostly sedentary man to be dealing with. The bottom line is: I’m doing well and feeling great (and relieved). Nothing left to do but smile.
(and really just because he has a way of making everything better)
Chronic illness reminds you who your friends are, and in that regard I am very fortunate. And I am grateful. From a bishop, to a former coworker, to a seminary classmate, to my sister, to a childhood friend I have known since I was 14 when we met during initiation for freshmen at St. Francis High School, and of course the staff, residents, and volunteers of my residence, Stonewall Gardens Assisted Living, I feel supported, loved, and well looked after. In that way I am rich beyond measure.
