My Doctor says no unnecessary scans...

Melissa, More than anything else.... I hate the way your doctor is making you feel. Have you considered getting a second opinion? You didn't mention radiation which surprises the heck out of me. I was stage 1 / grade 3 and had brachy along with chemo. Now that you have finished what he recommended, and since you don't feel good about the follow up (or lack of) it would be good for you to hear from someone else - especially if that new person listens and takes the time to make sure you are satisfied.

Take care of yourself and congrats on finishing chemo! Give yourself time to heal from it.  You will get stronger and stronger over time but it doesn't happen overnight.

Love and Hugs,

Cindi

I don't see how they can make a decision about whether or not to do radiation if they don't do at least one scan after chemo.

How do they know how much of a difference the chemo made? How do they know whether or not radiation would make or not make a difference to any tumor(s) that remain?

If your remaining cancer is too extensive to make radiation feasible, that's one thing, but how can they make that decision without first checking on what the chemo did for you?

I'm with Cindi, you need another opinion. My gyn-onc doesn't practice out of Roswell anymore, but if you want his name to get another opinion about this, just pm me. It's not the institution that matters so much as the doctor, wherever he/she practices. I was given the choice by my gyn between going to Roswell or to this other gyn-onc and I asked which she would pick if she were in my shoes and she picked this doctor. I've been very grateful to her for that referral. 

It's one thing to be conservative about radiation exposure, but your Roswell doctor seems a bit over the top if he doesn't even want to see how much good the chemo has done for you.

Did you have any genetic or genomic testing done to see if there are other options besides chemo to help you keep this beast at bay? Stage IV hasn't been a death sentence for others, so you should be offered whatever options are out there for you to keep going before anything gets a chance to come back. 

I hate wait and watch doctors! Especially ones who make you feel like you are an inconvenience! How cruel!

I agree with the others . A second opinion is in order. I challenged my doctor as I have only had blood tests and internal for the past year, but I did have a scan after chemo was done and now finally I will have another. I reminded that I didn't bleed heavily in the first place and was still 3C high grade , also i don't see the value in my CA125 anymore as mine was never high and remains in the teens. Now I'm just waiting to see if insurance approves .

Melissa, my gyn-onc told me no chemo and no scans when I saw him for my first appointment. That changed after my surgery (eventhough my diagnosis of MMMT didn't change). I'm not exactly sure why but he changed his mind and decided that chemo, radiation and scans would all be necessary. My first 3-month follow-up CT scan after front-line indicated a mass in my chest so I've now had 3 more PET scans on top of the CT scans that I had before surgery, after surgery and during treatment. (By the way, the mass appears to benign but it's still metabolically active so he wants to watch it.)

I'm telling you all of this because my MMMT was staged at 1b. If you were at stage 4 then it seems completely illogical that scans would be more risky to your health than not catching a metastisis or recurrence as quickly as possible. MMMT is a grade 3 cancer for a reason. It is well known to be extremely aggressive.

I agree with the others - get another opinion about scans asap!