No Cancer in Lungs!

I saw my radiation oncologist today. We’ve gotten hold of a written report of my CT scan, which says no sign of cancer in the lungs. Very good news. The bad news is, the report says there has been damage to my right lung from the radiation -- at the apex, which was expected, but also in the “anterior middle lobe”, which was not expected -- at least not by me. I’ll have to ask my radiation oncologist later why the middle of my lung got zapped.

The report also says there’s fluid all around the right side implant -- under the implant as well as above it. Hence, the swelling. My radiation oncologist says he doesn’t know what’s caused this fluid build-up. My surgeon had said earlier that the swelling was edema (swollen tissue), NOT fluid, based on an ultrasound, but the CT report says it’s fluid. So which is it? The radiation oncologist says he’s not sure, based on the written report; he’ll have to see the actual films from the CT scan.

This still leaves the mystery of why I have this swollen, purplish-red mass on my chest where the cancer used to be. It hasn’t gotten any better since we switched antibiotics three days ago. This leads me to believe that it’s not an infection after all, since the likelihood that my body doesn’t respond to three different antibiotics is pretty slim. My pedestrian guess is that I ripped some scar tissue inside my chest with all the heavy lifting I did during our move. The fact that it’s only happened on the right side and I’m right-handed supports my theory.

We’ll have to wait to get the CT scan films, I suppose, and see what else it can tell us.