Doctors like to celebrate yearly anniversaries of such events by ordering a slew of medical tests for their patients. I was no exception. For those of you who do NOT wish to read all the gory details, I have prepared an executive summary. Ready? Here it is. As far as I can remember, I feel fine for my age and test results do not prove otherwise. ;)
For those of you who fall into one of the following categories, you may read further at your own risk for more details than you probably want:
1- You are an aspiring doctor.For those of you who fall into one of the following categories, you may read further at your own risk for more details than you probably want:
2- You are addicted to medical shows on TV.
3- You or someone you love has colon cancer.4- You have spare time you don't know what to do with.
Long time readers of my blog may remember that when I was diagnosed with cancer in November 2007, I made the choice to be open about most information pertaining to my condition and treatment, in hopes that it would be helpful in assisting someone else with cancer or maybe help encourage others to get checked for cancer themselves and hopefully benefit from early detection.
Exactly one month before Christmas, I was subjected to PET and CAT scans. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this procedure, allow me to elaborate. You are injected with a radioactive dye and drink a radioactive milkshake (delivered in a serious looking sealed metal container) and then slid back and forth through a large, donut-shaped (torus) imaging device which revolves inside the donut and bombards you with positrons all while being instructed to hold still for extended periods of time while your bladder begs for relief from the large, radioactive milkshake you drank an hour ago. It sounds and feels like being put inside an atom smasher. Fortunately, I am not claustrophobic. See previous post for more info.
http://camswebpage.blogspot.com/2008/11/im-getting-nuked-on-tuesday.html
Good news. The doctor said that no abnormalities were detected by the PET and CAT scans.
Three non-cancerous polyps were found and removed during my December 17th colonoscopy, one in the ascending colon and two in the descending colon.
I was invited to participate in a double blind research project to help determine the lowest dose of Erlotinib (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlotinib) that is effective in shrinking small, pre-cancerous growths, known as "aberrant crypt foci" (ACFs) sometimes found on the inner lining of the colon. The following 2 page report describes the study related sigmoidoscopy performed immediately after my colonoscopy. Since 5 ACFs were discovered, I qualify for the study and decided to participate. The report also documents the ACFs for the one month follow-up sigmoidoscopy which will check for possible ACF shrinkage.
The most frequent side effects of Erlotinib are skin rashes and diarrhea. The following articles describe how to pronounce the word "aberrant" and information about ACFs.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/36/A0013600.html
http://www.inra.fr/reseau-nacre/sci-memb/corpet/acf.html
Articles about the effectiveness of colonoscopies in detecting what appears to be two different kinds of colon cancer (descending colon cancer [left side] & ascending colon cancer [right side]) and how to safely prepare for them.
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-he-colonoscopy22-2008dec22,0,7482776.story
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-he-colonoscopy22-2008dec22,0,7482776.story
1 comment:
I did read all this....promise. Super interesting to read and be more knowledegeable about what is going on with you. Love you and glad its been a pretty healthy year for you.....
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