Henry's followup scans showed what they call "uptake" in his lungs. Basically this means that something in his lungs is absorbing the radioactive iodine that he took two weeks ago. Since thyroid cells are the only cells in the body that absorb iodine, the conclusion is that the cancer has metastasized to his lungs. We'll have a high resolution CT done at Primary Children's to see how involved it is and get a better picture of what we're dealing with. Thyroid cancer in children is typically more aggressive than in adults, so lung mets can occur in 20% of all pediatric thyroid cancer patients. It shouldn't significantly effect his outcome or prognosis.
I know all of that intellectually. I understand that the odds are still great that he'll be fine. But I'm discouraged. Our best case scenario was that the scan showed uptake only in the thyroid bed, meaning that the cancer hadn't spread beyond what we already knew. Now we have an extra layer of worry and concern. It means more tests and scans and monitoring. Henry isn't thrilled to be taking yet another trip to Salt Lake City for yet another scan. But we'll go and go happily and be grateful that we have such good medical facilities available to us.
March is coming in like a lion for us, it seems. Let's hope that it goes out like a lamb. Isn't that the way it's supposed to happen?
No comments:
Post a Comment