I was at Memorial Sloan Kettering today for my second infusion in my third drug trial. I showed an image from a scan I had in January to a nurse. She said she has never seen anything like it.
Earlier in the week I had sent an image to my brother, who texted to a couple of doctors. They thought there was no way I can be doing what I am doing. One said the only time they have ever seen anything like it was in a book during med school. This last 7 days I biked 30 miles and ran 10 miles. Not the fastest, but I am doing it.
Anyway, I was scrolling through photos on my computer, I came across am image from a scan in 2019. I had not A/B'd them. I went back and grabbed a scan from March, 2020 and grabbed four images to compare to the same image from the January, 2022. As one doctor said, my cancer is not subtle.
The top of each image is my chest, the bottom my spine. As you look at the images, the right lung is to the left (think that I am lying on my back and you are looking from the feet up).
The white section, which is in the middle, is organ/spine etc.
The gray area out from there to the left and right are the lungs.
These images are 1.25mm slices. It is difficult to line-up one scan to the next exactly, but this is fairly close. I had one brighter/contrast raised a bit on one of the scan, but does not change things too much.
Despite what you see, I am still here today. There is an element of chance/luck and the brilliance of the doctors and staff that I have been fortunate to have, but I am doing what I can for things I can control to help the odds.
The exercise has kept me in better shape that I would otherwise be. It is never easy, but worth it. One chemotherapy was not approved until one year after I was diagnosed. The combination of drugs I am on now in trial were not used/approved until December, 2019 for breast cancer and January, 2022. It is not easy, but every day we can fight for and add gives us more hope and a chance.
