The very short description of the procedure is this. First, they inject Mary with a radioactive goo that migrates to her bones over a 3 to 5 hour period. After the nominal four hours, they put her on a table with a camera that is sensitive to radioactive materials. She lays there, perfectly still for up to an hour while they image the skeleton. And they get pictures that look like this: click here or here (the second one is a popup and may not display).
The MRI last Wednesday showed a 5 mm "something" (less than 1/4 inch) on her vertebrae L11. The MRI could not resolve the thing so the radiologist classified it as a TSTC (Too Small to Classify). All we know is that there is something there. The bone scan may confirm there is a TSTC or it may confirm something else. Who knows?
Oh, I love the semantics in the medical community. If you have a cancer on your bone(s) and that is the only cancer you have, then its called bone cancer. Now, that is clear and logical. However, if you have another cancer (say cholangiocarcinoma aka CC) and develop cancer on your bone(s), you most likely do not have bone cancer. Say what? Apparently, the convention is to say the cancer on the bone is a metastized cancer from CC or whatever but its not, technically bone cancer. Until they do a biopsy and confirm the cancer cells are from the whatever cancer. If they are the same (most probable), then its metastized. If different, then you have two cancers--the bone cancer and the original cancer. Somehow, this adds clarity.
Many thanks to Gayla who is doing the round trip driving duty this morning and to Marge who is doing the duty for the round trip this afternoon.
Overall, we seem to have found the right point of food and pain killer. I reread this blog from last April and found that they had recommended Benedryl with the pain killer then. Both of us has forgotten about it. Last night Mary took that with her pain pill and slept thru the night nicely. We're figuring it out!
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