I had an OP appointment on Monday afternoon, technically a follow up from my admission last month. It was a useful review of where we’re at, I guess, but we didn’t learn anything new, much. Main outcomes are that, failing to get a tissue based confirmation of a cancer, there’s no point in starting chemo. Meanwhile, the hotspot found on my liver by the PET scan needs identifying, so I’m booked for an MRI of that area next Friday afternoon. I’ve also been sent for a load more blood tests, some to confirm that the infection has gone and some as a general check up on how my liver and kidneys are coping. That meant a quite long wait in the blood test clinic which tends to be very busy on weekday afternoons.
The consultant who saw me this time (they work as a team of about four of them), Dr Haq, confirmed that I’m a highly unusual case in taking so long to tie down a diagnosis. The difficulty is that some non-malignant growths, an autoimmune one for example, can so precisely mimic a malignancy in its symptoms and appearance on imaging that it’s been known for the patient to be sent to Nottingham for the major surgery of removing the head of pancreas only for it to turn out to be non-malignant after all.
If the MRI does find something in my liver, the next step will be to get a biopsy sample of that with an ultrasound guided needle.
What larks, Pip!
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