PET Scan and meeting with Dr. Cockeril

Steve here. After the meeting with my oncologist last Thursday, we found out I needed to undergo 4 more diagnostic tests before we could determine what stage of the Hodgkins Lymphoma that I'm in. The first was the Pulminary Function Test (PFT) which I had to take later that very day, which was a test of my lungs, since some parts of chemo can be fairly hard on the lungs, and they needed to see if my lungs could handle it. They also took blood this same day to do a complete workup and that all turned out great. The second was a Multigated Acquisition Scan (MUGA Scan) that I took last Friday at 2 pm. This one was a scan of my heart and the major arteries. Then right after the MUGA Scan on Friday, I took another CT Scan, this time of my torso and pelvis, to see if I had anymore tumors below my diaphram. The last test took place today at 2 pm. It was a whole boy Positron Emission Tomography Scan (PET Scan) and this one was a scan of my whole body from my shoulders down to my knees to see if the lymphoma cells have spread to any other parts of my body.

Right after the PET Scan, I met with Dr. Cockeril again to discuss the results from all the testing I did in the last 5 days. We didn't find out everything we necessarily wanted to know today but what we did hear was nothing but good news! The results show that none of the infected cells have spread to below my diaphram, so its all within my chest and shoulder area, and within that area, he said that it looks like it really is quite minimal. Now, we were hoping to be able to diagnose what stage of the lymphoma I'm in, so we could decide on a treatment plan from here, but unfortunately, the people who analyzed my CT scan said it seems like my spleen is a little enlarged. Because of this, we can't quite diagnose the stage I'm in just yet, because Dr. Cockeril says we cannot be sure. So, he is sending me down to Rochester to get a second opinion on all of the tests and scans, and that will be on Thursday. There is a possibility that I may need to get a bone marrow biopsy in order to determine whether I'm experiencing 'A' symptoms or 'B' symptoms, because at the current moment, that information is very unclear. Like I said, I didn't find out exactly what I hoped to know by the end of today, but the little bit that I did hear, I feel very positive and very much at ease because of how Dr. Cockeril said that it doesn't seem like it's spread very much.

I'll post again after the trip to Mayo on Thursday with all of the information we hear from the doctors there! Thanks a lot everyone for the support!

-Steve