A Lot of Tears, Stress and a False Alarm

Hi all,

Well, the tests all began on September 28th. I had my CEA blood work. It came back stable. I had a scope with my surgeon, it came back clear. Then I had the CT scan and it came back with suspicious findings in an area near my last recurrence. My Oncologist was immediately convinced it was an early recurrence and I was looking at cancer number 4! She referred me to my surgeon to plan the next course of action. He looked at the scans and said he wasn't convinced it was cancer. He scheduled me back to his office for my 2nd sigmoid scope in 8 days. Again he found nothing. I do have to say if you haven't had the opportunity to watch a sigmoid. If your Dr will let you, do it. It is quite interesting. My surgeon was very informative, a great teacher and I know more about my insides now then I ever imagined. Anyway, he explained that ones colon never stops moving. It contracts regularly to keep things moving. He was convinced that the suspicious area that was showing on the Ct scan was a colon contraction that occured as the pictures were taken. He did take a couple of scrapings in the area and sent them for biopsy but I left his office feeling better even though my oncologist was so sure it was a recurrence. He wanted me to go ahead and have the PET scan the next day just to be sure that there wasn't something he couldn't see. So I did that on Friday. He called me today and said everything was clear. No sign of anything. I could finally breathe. My oncologist will sure be surprised when she gets back from vacation on Monday. It was a long few weeks feeling like a ping pong ball and conflicting opinions by my medical team, but I guess the good thing is I have had just about every test possible to hear it was a false alarm so I can trust the findings. I am grateful to be able to afford good health insurance. Now I need to try and put it away until next tests in March. When we do this for awhile, especially if we have recurrences it becomes habit to expect bad news. This has taught me that because the news was bad, once, twice or even 3 times it doesn't always have to be. On October 10th I will celebrate 7 years since my Stage 3 colon cancer diagnosis. There have been a number of bumps and recurrences along the way but I am still standing. Today I am very grateful. 

Blessings

MAlice