Yesterday (October 2, 2007), we met with our surgeon/oncologist for the first time. During the meeting a number of things came up, or went up, as the case may be. What went up was an endoscope up my nose so that he could have a quick look around for the tumour, which isn’t showing up on the CT scan. And he couldn’t see it. Basically what it means is that they can’t seem to find the primary tumour easily.
The next step will to do an ‘IUA‘, or investigation under anaesthesia (how DO you spell it?) so that they can probe deeper into the sinuses and throat, something that can’t be done easily while I’m awake.
They are also trying to arrange a PET scan, something that I need to research.
We now know what we don’t know: we don’t know where the primary tumour is, and therefore don’t know if the original diagnosis is accurate, and as a consequence don’t know what the treatment protocols will be.
So the current schedule is for an IUA as soon as possible (read 2 weeks), an MRI on October 11th, and a PET scan as soon as possible.
Damn! It could be December before we get into treatment at this rate. Although, to be fair, the system is moving fairly quickly. I shouldn’t complain, but its hard not to when one’s life is at risk.