I had a bronchoscopy on Friday* looking for any movement of the cancer to my lymph nodes.  Everything looked normal, and although I haven’t seen the detailed results of the biopsy yet, I got a phone call from the radiologist’s nurse a while ago saying that there’s no evidence of additional cancer.  That’s good news because it means that the radiation treatment can concentrate on the one lump that we already know about.

I have an appointment with the radiologist tomorrow a bit after noon when we’ll work out the treatment schedule.  I’ll also have another CAT scan, I guess to make sure that the lump hasn’t moved; and I’ll get fitted for the cocoon that will keep me immobile during the radiation.  I’ll update this post tomorrow if there’s actually any more to say.

I’m glad to get moving on this.  I’ll have several radiation treatments (three IIRC); and the chemo, which will have to wait for the radiation to be done, will require four sets of three treatments on consecutive days, the four sets separated from each other by three (IIRC) weeks.  This already bumps into a trip that I’ll be taking in November by a couple of days; but the oncologist, who’ll be doing the chemo, said that he can work around that.  We’ll see…

Update 2023-08-16:  I now have a schedule for my radiation treatments starting a week from tomorrow:  six weekdays from Thursday the 24^th through Thursday the 31^st.  I’ll have about an hour and a half of driving (round trip) for fifteen-minute appointments. 8-(

I’m told that the first visit will be a dry run just to make sure that everything is working correctly; then I’ll have five actual treatments on Friday, then Monday through Thursday.

I also have some chemo appointments scheduled for later this month, but I think I remember the oncologist saying that we have to wait until after I’m done with the radiation before starting the chemo.  I’ve sent the oncologist a message asking whether we need to reschedule.

Today’s visit went pretty quickly.  They had me lie down in a CAT scanner on top of a couple of bags that, I guess, they filled with some kind of stuff that hardened around my torso.  They then did a CAT scan, I guess to make sure that they know where everything inside me is, and made some marks on my chest, I guess to make sure that they get me correctly positioned in my half-cocoon for the treatments.

Pierce R. Butler commented on a previous post suggesting that I might want to take the half-cocoon, which he called a “mesh”, home with me after the treatments are done.  It doesn’t look like what they made is something I’d ever need for anything.

*The bronchoscopy required general anesthesia, so this extreme introvert, because he has nobody he can rely on to take care of him afterwards, had to spend Friday night in the hospital for “observation”.  I’ve never had any problem with general anesthesia, so as expected, nothing was observed. 😎

I didn’t really mind, aside from the boredom; but I thought that I was taking up a hospital bed for no good reason.  When I mentioned that to one of the doctors, he laughed and said that he’d had patients admitted for less reason than that, so I guess I’m not a bad guy after all.