Follow up tests

My story is very long, so I will just tell a little
I was diagonsed 6-03 I finished my treatments in Oct. How long after treatment did you have follow up tests, like pap and so on.... did they have a bad pap. and what did the doctors do after that...I just get the run around and I am getting very frustrated..should I have any concerns right now ...HELP

Comments

  • jplemmons
    jplemmons Member Posts: 6
    I finished treatments in Oct also. Since then I have had a CT scan and 1 internal exam in Nov and my first pap in Jan. I will go back for my second pap in April. I am also going to have a CT scan in April. My first pap came back normal (with radiation changes), so I don't know what happens when is comes back "bad".

    I don't know how to help without knowing exactly what's going on. You can e-mail me at plemmonsfamily@aol.com and maybe I can help.

    Jen
  • grannyfranny
    grannyfranny Member Posts: 42
    I was diagnosed last July. My surgery was in August and I finished radiation in December. I'll be getting a Pap this week. I've had an internal exam in between. The oncologist told me that if I had one too soon, the lingering radiation could result in unreliable test results.
    You could just call your doc's office & schedule a Pap smear. Put him or her on the spot to cancel it and explain why, if s/he thinks it's a bad idea.
  • grannyfranny
    grannyfranny Member Posts: 42
    I was diagnosed in July(uterine cancer), had a radical hysterectomy August 19 (turned out to have cervical c too), and finished radiation in mid-December. In January, my oncologist said that it was too soon for a Pap smear; the recent radiation would make the results unreliable. Today I had a Pap done and the doc gave me an order for a new CT scan. So it's been almost 7 months since my surgery.

    I assume that any cancer big enough to see would have been removed in August, given that I have a competent onco surgeon. Anything tiny enough to have been missed by him and by the pre-op CT scan wouldn't show up on another CT scan until it had grown a bit, and of course it might (I hope!) have been killed by the radiation before it had a chance to grow. Did you have surgery? It's kind of reassuring to have that path report saying that no cancer was found in the lymph nodes.

    Wouldn't it easier all around if we just glowed in the dark when even one cancer cell was present?