Round #3: Pre-chemo doctor visit

I saw my oncologist yesterday for the pre-chemo appointment and got a few questions answered. He told me why he ultimately opted not to take out my spleen. He said that since the most pressing problem was the hip tumor they wanted to get that addressed first and surgery would have made that more difficult. He also said that since I'm doing chemo there is some hope that that will put me into remission on its own and I then would not need surgery at all. Finally, he said that I can always have the surgery.

He also set up a CT scan on January 26th to check the progress of the treatment so far. I guess any earlier would not have given the chemo and radiation a chance to do its work. So that will be good to know. For now, the plan is the usual 6 rounds of treatment, like I did last time. Which means that I will be halfway through after this round. Yay! But I guess that will change if the disease has progressed further instead of shrinking or going into remission.

As far as the lump on my head, it was apparent that he had NOT been told about that concern. That kindof upset me. He did feel around on it and said that it didn't seem to be a related tumor because it was smooth and uniform. He also said that it isn't in the sub-cutaneous layer, but seem to be down in the layer that covers the skull. So he doesn't plan anything for now, but since I'll be in for a CT scan on the 26th, they will include a head scan if the thing is still there [which I suspect it will be since it's been there for a month that I know of]. So this will be a scan from my pelvis to the top of my head. Finally a full picture of what's going on. You can bet I'll be nervous waiting for those results.

Darcy cut my hair again last night because it was looking pretty ragged after some grow out after the cut with that crappy set of clippers. I got a better set of clippers and they did a good job, but the longest comb [used to set the length of the cut] was only 3/8". I would swear it was shorter than that, too. At least when this grows out it will be more uniform. (what I manage to keep on my head, anyway)