My One Year Mayo Clinic Report

Hi Everyone, We just got home from our trip to Mayo Clinic at Rochester, MN. The day started early with a blood draw at 7:30 a.m….followed by a lot of confusion and deliberation about what kind of scan I was going to receive. The radiologist was more than concerned about me getting another CT with contrast to check for recurrent CC. since I’d had a questionable reaction to the contrast last time. So, it was decided between the radiologist and oncologist that I would go ahead with a CT, but without contrast, just of my lungs/chest area…and then do an abdominal/pelvic MRI with contrast for the rest of it. That really increased our testing time out of the day, but it ended up with the best possible circumstances. They got really good pictures, according to my Mayo oncologist and the proclamation is that there was no evidence of recurrent cancer anywhere they had scanned. The nodules that had been seen in my lungs have been stable and have not grown. Dr. Domingo (oncologist) said that IF they had been CC, they would have grown and they were no longer concerned about them. I’ve had many upper respiratory infections over the years, including too many bouts of pneumonia, so some of what they are seeing are remnants of infections .

In our discussions, we talked about IF the CC returns…..he would expect it to more likely return in the area of the liver again…..not at some distant place….because everything was contained in the liver at the time of the surgery.

So, the news is fantastic!!! Right after telling me that there were no recurrences, then he said, “You had a rare cancer….and you’ve beaten the odds.” Now, I know I’m not out of the woods….and I know it can come back down the road, but I knew what he meant. He was very happy…and very positive and obviously celebrated being able to tell me that. We talked again about the surgery….and the wide (2.2 cm) clean surgical margin and he mentioned that the bigger, clean margins make all the difference. IN my case…it was clean all the way to the one big (5.5 cm) tumor. The right side of my liver has grown amply enough to compensate for the left side I lost.

At two years, the risk of the cancer returning will tip more heavily in my favor. He was very encouraged by the fact that the CC has not shown any signs at this point. For now…..I am going to say my prayers of thanks…..and again….thank you all here for being here for me…for everyone else. In a month or less, I’ll be a new grammy again…..and I told my onc that he had to promise to keep me around and healthy ….to keep away the CC….to babysit this little guy. His reply was, “If it were in my power to do that, you know I would. “

Julie T.