The Pelvis Feel Good factor

Last week when I was told my pelvis was free of tumours I was of course very relieved. Today, before my chemo, I got to quiz the doctor more about my results. So naturally my first question was about my pelvis - it being one area of my torso which is completely free of horrid tumours. --- denotes the learned doctor's responses.

- So my pelvis is free of tumours?
--- Yes let me look in the report. Yes it is clear
- Were there any tumours there in the first place?
--- Umh. let me look at the previous report. Actually no there werent any tumours at the start.

Well, well. Great start no?

- So what is a "full remmission?"
--- Full remission is when you don't see anything. Its all clear.
- So in my case you are expecting a partial remission given that you are still seeing tumours?
--- No we expect a full remission. The difficulty is in the classification. Many of your tumours are now scar tissue. Some are as small as 7mm and we would discount these as tumours. So it is possible for you to have small areas of scar tissue but because these would show up in the CT scan your case would be declared a partial remission when indeed in reality you would be free of cancer. However it is true that in Hodgkins only a few cells need to be active within a tumour for you to have cancer. So we would need to monitor you etc.

Hmmm.

- Anything else of interest?
---Umh. yes you appear to have a kidney stone. Maybe we will get you to see an urologist after your chemo sessions are over.

How exciting!?! I now have something to look forward to. There's nothing I would love more than to start on my kidneys after all this.