I'll Pass for Now

Got a CT scan of both abdomen and thorax on Thursday and Friday. I had a long talk with Dr. Schuler about the results. The CT scans showed no obvious cancer metastsis, in fact it showed less suspicous activity than the one 7 weeks ago in Oregon. If it were cancer it should have grown significantly in that time period. Given the lack of elevated tumor markers the Dr. cannot say whether there is cancer or not. Every thing that is suspicous has another reasaonble explanation. Given that, he gave me the following possibilities:

1) Continue with the "wait and watch". He said that even if it did start to grow and I had to come back in 3 or 6 months, the treatment would be the same.

2) Do two cycles of chemotherapy. If anything shrinks then it must have been cancer and they would then do a third cycle. If nothing shrinks then it wasn't cancer but I probably wouldn't have to worry about anymore.

Being a coward, I chose option 1. I will go to the clinic next week and get an ultrasound on the remaining testicle just to make sure that it is OK, might as do that while I am in Germany, just in case...

I had already arrangedto rent an apartment in a suburb of Mainz called Fenthen, about a 20 minute bus ride from downtown. Quite expensive, but still much better than a hotel room, I'll be moving in today. I plan on returning home around the 25th of April. Hopefully I will be spending my time as a tourist and not in the hospital.