Part 24. Am I cured of Throat Cancer ? The Follow-up procedure.

How Pet scans are used in determining Cancer Status.

 Here I was I had completed my cancer treatment to date it was now hopefully Back to Better Health - into remission - and the best possible outcome Being Cured of Cancer. As you may imagine these thoughts are always present . My need to know had to be capped as Professor Proceddu explained that this particular type of throat cancer has been known to resurface up to 6 years later so I was set on a four-month checkup timetable (because we weren't sure if we would return back to the Cairns region 1300km away). that was it unless I felt uncomfortable with my progress I would be back in 4-month intervals. I took this as a positive compared to the "6 month sentence " handed down by the original General Practitioner.

Each visit was a milestone for me and Professor Proceddu would extract as much info as I could give him, a manual external inspection of my neck was followed by an internal inspection by a Nasal Endoscopy camera discussed in Episode 4.

Years came and went until the 6th year when I asked How do you determine if I am cured of my Pharyngeal-throat Cancer ? At this time there was only one way to check and that was by a PET Scan.

How the Pet Scan Works.

This image of the Pet Scan machine shows a table that moves into the machine that encircles your body taking X-rays. The radioactive dye is intravenously fed into the body which when x-rayed highlights "Hotspots " in different colors of your entire body. It should be noted that after this procedure, you are slightly radioactive until you pass the dye through your body and filtered out in your urine explained to me in around 24 hours. WARNING avoid as many people as possible especially women who may be pregnant.

Basically the dye highlighted areas of concern and even to my untrained eyes, different areas "lit" up like a Christmas Tree. Let the Pathologists read your x-ray, The colored areas light up for different reasons so DONT self-diagnose.

Image taken by endoscopy (Episode 4)of my throat passage showing a healthy pink color taken on this day. My first endoscopy 6 years ago showed grey and infected tissue.

 Today's meeting with Professor Porceddu was where 6 long years culminated; was I Cured of Cancer or not? I was feeling confident as the first GP. 6-month terminal diagnosis was now 6 years behind me but it still was not a clean report card on the cancer diagnosis !. Yes, there were spots on my shoulders that were abnormal which were then put down to my Rheumatoid Arthritis and I received news of an injury I never knew I Had---a small fracture (since healed) in a vertebra in my neck from a motorbike accident I had 40 years ago!

I was sad that this was my last official appointment with Professor Sandro Porceddu as I could now go off his critical list of patients. To my amazement, he explained to me he was currently overseeing 500 cancer patients at this time. Now you understand why everyone thinks so highly of him, he is an absolute Champion!

PHARYNGEAL THROAT CANCER CURED NO SIGN I HAVE SURVIVED STAGE 4 CANCER

As I was known now as the "man with the questions" my next one was 

"Is there any other cancer in my body as I had a full body scan?

Answer NO. The PET scan revealed no cancer evident on THIS day! Hooray WE as a team had been diagnosed, had cancer treatment, and had survived stage 4 Pharyngeal Throat Cancer!

My Doctor explained because we had cured my throat cancer it didn't give me absolute coverage on all "TYPES" of cancer known to science but as for the Throat Cancer it was GONE and no other type was evident.

WE HAD BEAT CANCER -THANK GOD!

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