CT Scan results

There are two ways you can interpret results: as the old adage says, by looking at the glass half full or the glass half empty.

When we sat with a our pleasant oncology nurse this morning as she began to tell us the results, if there had been a camera in the room, you would have seen an almost imperceptible frown starting on both Charl's face and my own. This would have happened as she described, in centimeters, how large the remaining mass was.

In January, the mass was 15cm x 15cm x 8cm. The CT results from last week showed, she told us, 6.8cm x 6.5cm x 3.8cm. We knew the X-ray didn't show everything, but in all honesty we were expecting it to be smaller.

The nurse left the room and as we awaited the arrival of our hematologist Dr Savoie, we were thinking, ok, so just a touch over half way shrunk. Hmmm. Slightly disappointing. I mean good, but slightly disappointing. Glass half empty.

Just a few words about the doctor. Dr. Lynn Savoie comes across as a brilliant, young, friendly, approachable, direct, and even-keel kind of person. (And she has this amazing, big HAIR that I can not help but envy). Anyway, she came after hours on several occasions while Charl was still in hospital to discuss with him his diagnosis, and the realities of the chemo that would follow. She made every effort to make sure we were informed, and prepared for his treatment. She was so even-keel, in fact, that it was difficult to tell at the time if she thought his prognosis was good or bad. She just focused on the facts and remained neutral, with a bent on helping us fight the disease in any way possible. This description might be applicable of most doctors, but to us she was like a serious, capable, big haired angel, ready to lead the way to stratospheric recovery.

As she sat down to discuss the results with us she, again, was quite neutral (which before we questioned the results, didn't surprise us but also didn't inspire us either). Charl, in his genial way, joked that the chemo wasn't working very fast, and to this she retorted that we mustn’t focus on centimeters, we must look at the volume. Now we couldn't tell how much water there was in the glass...

Over lunch after our appointment, I pulled out a note pad for us to do the math and really work out the difference in sizes of the tumor. All of a sudden, the picture became so much clearer. Originally 1800cm3, it was now only 168cm3; it had gone from the size of a small football to less than a tennis ball. Volume. WOW. It had shrunk down 90% of its original size (in volume). OK so he still has a tumor the size of a tennis ball.. but glass half full!! The chemo is working!

Charl will still do the last 2 rounds of chemo, then a month recovery, then a month of radiation. They will do a PET scan (where they see if there are still active cancer cells in the mass) after the 6th round and a final CT scan after the radiation. We thank the Lord Charl is well on his way to recovery!!