Cancer is definitely a roller coaster ride! Yesterday was up and today is back down again.

I had my second mIBG treatment on Friday. When Dr. MacEwan, nuclear medicine radioisotope specialist at the Cross, entered the room for our pretreatment consultation, he started by thanking me for contacting my MLA about the delay in getting government approval for the lutetium clinical trial. It made a big difference, he said. In fact, the trial has received approval and is up and running now but there are a few hoops left to jump through before they can begin taking on new patients like myself. In the meantime though, the clinic is working overtime treating those patients who were receiving lutetium before the government cut its funding.

Though lutetium might still be my better option, yesterday’s post treatment scan showed that the mIBG appears to be working. There was no indication that the cancer had grown or spread. That was great news and we rode it to the top of the roller coaster!

Then the phone rang this morning. It was Dr. MacEwan calling with the results of the PET scan that I had before Friday’s treatment. He had ordered the scan in hopes that it would shed some light on what it was that had previously been found in the left side of my face. Apparently, it revealed that there is a growth of some sort in my salivary gland. That didn’t come as a complete surprise to me as I’ve been feeling swelling and tenderness there for some time. Dr. MacEwan is quite confident that it isn’t related to my other tumours, however. He suggested that there are a number of possibilities, many of them benign. Though he did his best to reassure me that it likely isn’t anything to be too concerned about, I felt the roller coaster begin to descend again.

After discussing options, including simply keeping an eye on it, we agreed that a needle biopsy to determine exactly what we’re dealing with would be a good idea. I’ll return to the Cross for that in about a month’s time after I’ve had time to fully recuperate from Friday’s treatment and my body has rid itself of most of the radioactivity. I have a lot of confidence in Dr. MacEwan and I feel certain that he wouldn’t intentionally give me false hope so, though I’m not feeling at the top of the roller coaster anymore, I haven’t crashed either.

It’s an ordinary common variety head cold that has me feeling really down today! 😦