I Have an Unremarkable Spleen

I got today's scan results in just a couple of hours. I understand about half of what was in the report. Here’s a summary of the parts I more or less understood:

My lymph nodes are no longer enlarged -- at least I’m assuming that’s what “no mediastinal lymphadenopathy” means, based on a Google search. And given the SCCA oncologist's concern with my original lymph nodes, this is a very good thing.

I have a small amount of “scattered subsegmental atelectasis” in my lungs, which Google tells me means some of the sacs in my lungs have collapsed. (Hey! Now I have an excuse for being such a lousy hiker.) There’s also a “pulmonary nodule” 4.4 mm in size which is the same size it was in the last scan. But as my brother learned talking to his doctor, we're all somewhat lumpy; as long as the lumps aren't growing or changing you're basically okay. So apparently I can ignore this unchanging lump in my lung for now.

I still have six “hepatic masses” in my liver, but they all seem to be about a centimeter smaller in each dimension than they were at my last scan. It’s been a long time since geometry, and tumors aren’t likely to be exactly spherical, but if my approximate, vaguely recalled math is more or less correct, a 3.5 diameter tumor that becomes a 2.5 diameter tumor has lost about 64% of its volume. So that’s got to be good news. The bad news is that 2.5 cm still seems pretty big to me, so I suspect my primary oncologist isn’t going to want to take me off the aggressive chemo just yet.  

The radiologist also noted evidence of a partial colon resection, which is a good thing as I’d hate to think they can remove a third of your colon and not have that show up in a scan. But more important, they found no “inflammatory stranding” which I assume would be signal for infection. 

Finally, my spleen was noted as “unremarkable,” as were my gall bladder and kidneys. Reading my scan report, I’m starting to think that the best thing an organ can possibly be is unremarkable. I wish all of my insides were unremarkable.

But if my guts have to be remarkable, it’s nice that the remarks are letting me know that the cancer is shrinking and I'm still on track to be a "good responder."