I still wish you could tip the radiologist people administering the tests to give you a sneak peak on your results. But they give you nothing. I ask every time hoping that one of them will budge, but no! I get it though. haha.
I took the CT on Monday and my Doctor appointment was Tuesday.
Brett came with me to the doctor appointment and it was all too familiar. Check in, Wait, Labs, Wait again even longer, nurse brings you back-- weight check, blood pressure, temperature, and medication list check. Then wait again. (Booo--- Justine, my favorite assistant wasn't there.)
My doctor wasn't scheduled for this visit because he only sees me every other time (he's pretty important..:)..) so the PA saw me today. She came in and started asking questions and started the physical. I finally had to interrupt her and ask how my CT results were. She asked "Oh, when did you have a CT scan?" For Reals. I was a little ticked. She did bring up the results quickly, and you could tell she got a little funny and worried about something on the screen. She had Brett and I look at it and we could see that there was something there where my tumor was that wasn't before. She told me that she was going to see if my doctor was still there and run it by him.
While she was gone, I was trying not to lose it. This was supposed to be my last scan. This was supposed to be clear and something that I could check off my list and be done with!
A few minutes later she returned and told me that I shouldn't be too worried because it looked like it could be a phenomenon called "Thymic Rebound." If this was the case then it should calm down and clear itself out over time. There's not a lot of information about it because it's normally seen in children and it's pretty rare.
Here is an article I found though--
This case illustrates a phenomenon called thymic rebound (also called benign thymic hyperplasia), which is defined as thymic regrowth 50% greater than baseline volume. Benign thymic hyperplasia occurs mainly after treatment with chemotherapy, but infrequent case reports describe its occurrence after periods of stress in cancer patients off chemotherapy as well. Chemotherapy causes thymic atrophy and a decrease in average volume of 33%, and regrowth occurs after treatment completion.
Benign thymic hyperplasia was initially described in children recovering from thermal burns, and later recognized as thymic rebound in children following chemotherapy. It has been associated with various types of pediatric cancers, including lymphomas, leukemias, testicular cancer, sarcomas and in the stem cell transplant setting.
The literature in adults is scarce, but it may occur in about 25% of adult chemotherapy patients. Benign thymic hyperplasia in adults has been documented in early stage breast cancer, lymphoma and uterine leiomyosarcoma. It usually occurs within the first year after chemotherapy, but it can present as many as five years later. In one case series, 31 of 134 PET scans (23.1%) for lymphoma showing focal flurodeoxyglucose uptake were diagnosed as nontumoral radiotracer uptake. Five of the 31 false-positive PET scans were related to thymic hyperplasia.
Benign thymic hyperplasia may result in diagnostic inaccuracies in PET scan interpretation with potential implications on patient management. However, an experienced interpreter of PET/CT scans can readily recognize its pattern on both PET and CT imaging, and temporally correlate it with a history of chemotherapy to avoid misinterpretation. If there remains a high suspicion of malignancy despite consideration of thymic rebound, tissue confirmation should be obtained to avoid the morbidity of unnecessary treatment.
She also explained that it can look very similar to relapsing, which is another option of what it could be. Stats show that if I were to relapse, it would be right now. Since I had a more "bulky" tumor, my chances increase for relapse as well. These are all worries that I can't put to rest. The only for sure way to know if it's thymic tissue vs. Hodgkin Lymphoma again is if they did a biopsy. Biopsies around my heart are not quite simple. Especially since we're only dealing with 2x3 centimeters now.
My doctor never came in, but she assured me that I shouldn't worry, and that they knew my case and we would be watching this carefully. He's pretty positive that it's the thymic tissue that is involved here, but if any other symptoms pop up-- I need to communicate that. They scheduled another CT in three months and then if it grew larger than we could talk about doing a biopsy.
I did ask about my heart pain and my shortness of breath when I get stressed out. They said it could be a combination of things, but it could be related to this.
All in all, I left this appointment feeling very confused and down. It didn't go at all how I expected, but I think that's one lesson I'm still learning! You can't control everything. Some things you have to just take and roll with it.
Well, by next post hopefully I'll have more positive vibes and intriguing thoughts. Then again.... maybe I'll just stick to something funny.
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| test results-- excuse the dinner on it. hahaha |
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