This week I had my appointment with my liver surgeon. I had my MRI about a week ago and this appointment was mainly just to confirm that everything is still ok with me. When I saw my surgeon a year ago, I was just so grateful to know that the shrinking tumors wasn’t a fluke. I was pretty nervous about things leading up to the appointment because I felt like things kept changing every appointment. But now, things seem almost routine (or as routine as they can be when you have multiple non-cancerous tumors in your liver).
Before my appointment with my surgeon, I had the text copy of my MRI report. When I first learned about my tumors, there were 3 of them. Last year, they could only see 2 of them. These tumors will never go away completely, but they can get so small that they aren’t seen on a scan anymore. And this time, I still only had 2 tumors in my report and they were even smaller! Last year, my surgeon mentioned that getting all my tumors under 3cm was a goal to have in mind because it makes some things less risky for me. And at that appointment last year the biggest one was just over 3cm. But according to this new MRI report, it was under that! So I was pretty excited to see my surgeon and hear what he had to say.
I’ve said this before, but I am so lucky with my liver surgeon. He is very upfront and honest about things with me, but my appointments also feel very casual and almost like a novelty. He’s not used to having patients who have shrinking tumors, so I think he is entertained by my case. And that’s fine with me because I’m pretty entertained by it too! And I think having these appointments feel so calm and casual has helped me relax about a medical situation that could be very scary.
He knew that I already saw the text to my MRI report so he confirmed what I read. My largest tumor, which started at about 10cm, was now 2.2cm. My smallest tumor is still not seen on the scan. And the medium-sized tumor had a little decrease in size from 1.1cm to 1cm (but that one started at 3cm). When we watched the images from my MRI, the biggest tumor looks so tiny in my liver now!
It’s also still completely inside my liver which is a good thing. When we discovered it, the tumor was half inside and half outside my liver. It was hanging off (as my surgeon likes to put it, it was hanging off like a bunch of grapes) and that was a very risky and dangerous thing. If the tumor broke off my liver, I could have had massive internal bleeding. It’s a big relief to know that not only is the tumor smaller, but that it is still completely inside my liver.
After looking at the images, we discussed the plan. There isn’t a big plan since this is still an unknown situation for my surgeon, but this is all good news. We discussed my future and what things can be riskier for me and what is now safe that the tumors are smaller. If in the future I need fertility treatments, they are an option for me now but I will need to be monitored. The same goes for if I’m pregnant in the future. I will still be high-risk, but it’s not as dangerous as it would have been before. Unfortunately, hormonal birth control is still too risky for me so I can’t go back to how things were before. But if that’s the only thing that is too risky for me, that’s not that bad.
We also discussed my future monitoring. My surgeon said if I wanted to have MRIs every other year instead of every year, we could do that. While I don’t love having MRIs, they aren’t the worst thing for me anymore. So I told him that if he wanted to do annual scans I would be ok with that. So he decided that I would have another MRI in a year and then we would reevaluate the plan in a year. And of course if anything changes or I have something happen, I can let him know and I can have a scan and appointment sooner. But I don’t expect anything to happen that would make me need to go in sooner than a year.
This seriously was such a normal and almost boring appointment. Nothing that big was said beyond confirming my tumors are shrinking. It’s so weird to think about how 2 years ago when I learned about the tumors everything seemed so crazy and hectic. I felt like a lot of things were happening quickly and was just trying to stay calm. Now, only 2 years later, seeing my liver surgeon was one of the easiest and least stressful doctor appointments I’ve had. The only weird thing we went over in my appointment was about the gallstone I currently have. It’s one large gallstone that is bigger than any of my tumors. But it’s better to have one big stone compared to a bunch of little ones. But we discussed that if I do have gallbladder issues again that he can take it out for me and take out the largest tumor as well. But I’m not expecting to need that soon. I haven’t had a gallbladder attack since the tumors shrank and that’s probably because the tumor was distorting my liver and pressing on my gallbladder. Now that the tumors are smaller, my gallbladder isn’t affected the same way.
So that’s really it from my appointment. There weren’t any big things discussed and the plan is to do another scan in a year. But there is no reason to expect that my tumors will grow again in the next year. I know there is a chance they won’t shrink anymore, but we aren’t expecting them to grow since they haven’t done that in any of my scans. Since discovering them 2 years ago, every scan has shown them getting smaller.
It’s been a crazy 2 year journey so far! I went from discovering I had tumors and needing surgery in October 2016, to finding out the tumors shrank in April 2017, to having them continue to shrink in my October 2017 scan, and now they’ve gotten even smaller!
You Might Also Like
A Quick MRI Turnaround (or At Least I Have Some Answers)
My Easiest Follow-Up So Far (or I Might Only Have One More Of These)
A Tumor Miracle (or I Wasn’t Expecting This)
Tumor Update Time! (or Guess I Won’t Have Another Of These For A While)
Tumor Updates (or I’ve Got A Plan For My Liver)
Another Story About A Tumor (or I Guess I Was Misdiagnosed For Over 15 Years)
