Mammogram and ultrasound

Yesterday I had another mammogram and ultrasound to check progress. I was supposed to also have a PET scan but the insurance denied it. Apparently Aetna knows what I need better than my doctor does. :-(

The Mammogram was fine and quick- they only took three pictures. There's nothing to see on the mammogram anymore. They can only see the clips that were inserted into the tumor when I had the initial biopsy. 

Then I went for the ultrasound. The lady didn't take very many pictures and didn't measure anything and then she went and got the doctor. The doctor came in and did her own turn on the ultrasound machine. She also didn't take very many pictures and didn't measure anything. At one point I had three people in the room looking at the ultrasound machine at the same time. It was weird. I left not really knowing what they saw. 

I went to see my oncologist this morning and asked her about the mammogram and ultrasound. She looked up the report and the reason they didn't take very many pictures or measuring anything was because they had a very hard time finding where the tumor was. They said it was indistinct and hard to find. The lymph node under the arm that had been biopsied had gone back to normal size. And the other lymph nodes that they found on the other scans were also back to normal size. So size-wise, things have gotten smaller. I have to have a breast MRI next Friday because they had such a hard time finding the breast tumor on the ultrasound.

All of this is, of course, good news, but you kind of have to take it with a grain of salt. Scans don't show everything, and the scans can't tell you what's really in there. We will only know that after surgery. So it's good news that nothing grew and that everything seems to have responded to chemo by shrinking, just hopefully when they go for surgery there's no cancer cells there. It'll just be scar tissue. That is the hope and prayer that we have at this time. And we are also praying that it has not spread, that it will never spread or recur as well. That will be my prayer for a long, long time.

So good news for now. Hopefully the good news will just keep coming. My oncologist hugged me today and was so sweet and supportive. I don't have to see her for 5 weeks. What will I do with myself in the meantime?!?