10/17/2018 PET Scan Results

October 25th, 2018 we received the results from the PET scan that was done on the 17th. Every visit I always asked for copies of the scans/bloodwork etc. and made plenty of notes. (I am pretty organized thankfully so I can get specific with our story). The nurse brought back the report and of course, I was rushing to read it before the doctor came in. The first thing I saw on the page, I read out loud was “4 new FDG avid lymph nodes”. Then the door opened and I was in shock as the Oncologist continued to read the report, tears just came flowing down my face uncontrollably! Todd kept saying it would be alright, he seemed to have known now for a couple of months that’s what was going on in his body. I feel bad for not trusting his instincts and not being more concerned, but I wanted to be positive and supportive. The doctor then said that he is recommending that we see the Surgical Oncologist again in Orlando for his opinion, which we knew it would be the lymph node dissection. He wanted to keep Todd on the Opdivo treatment that he had been doing now for 7 months and see him back in 3 weeks following the next treatment and other appointments.

The initial reaction did not change on the lymph node dissection, this was still something Todd was not interested in doing. The thought now was whether or not to have these 4 lymph nodes removed?

There was an immediate natural instinct that came over us. That day we went to Walmart, where we knew we could get a juicer and some organic produce in one place! We bought the best one we could find, it is Jack Lalanne’s Fusion Juicer. It has worked pretty good for us for the last 3 months of everyday use (we will probably be looking for an upgrade before too long). Not only do we use it every day but we make anywhere from 48-96 ounces of juice a day, it takes a lot of fruit and vegetables to produce that much juice and time–consuming.

Since I make a days worth of juice at a time we use Vitamin C crystals (ascorbic acid) to preserve the juice. This bottle will last a while, we are still on the first one. I may try another brand in the future but have not had any issues with this one.