CT scan and CEA test results

That cancer patient I also call my husband is a bit lazy again, asked me to report the good news! So here's a brief recap of last Thursday.

Week 29 Jan Arne had the CT scan and last Wednesday the CEA (cancer marker) test. On Thursday we were to see the doc about the results. We were two minutes late as usual. The doc was at the nurse's office (probably asking where we were) and when we passed the office the nurse yelled to us to the corridor right away "good news!" and smiled.

It was a new doc again, and older cancer specialist this time, always nice to hear new insights into things. The CT report was not very good this time, I mean it was not well written, but the main thing was that the news were good. According to the report there were no longer any metastases to be seen on the left lobe (one 1 cm one in May). The report also said that the changes in the right lobe were not significant, and there were measurements only for Mr Big (the biggest tumour). It has shrunk by a couple of millimeters.

But together with the CEA value which was now 65 (in Feb 108, in May 178) even the "insignificant decrease" was good news, the new chemo regime is working. This doc wants to take the CEA every three weeks now. He said that it is in a way more accurate than the CT scan. I didn't ask but I guess because the tumours don't necessarily shrink as fast as they are dying so you can't really see in CT which parts of the tumours are necrotic = dead cells and which are active cancer tissue.

We were planning to go to Norway week 33 and we asked if the treatment that week could be postponed a few days, but now JA is not actually sure if he wants to travel because of the swine flu... so let's see.