Further Info Re: Pathology Report

Ohhh, it's so nice to have doctors in the family who can decipher medical mumbo-jumbo!!! I just got off the phone talking with my cousin, Jeremy, and he was able to add further insight into my pathology results.

First of all, he said the fact that there was a "single focus of well-differentiated adenocarninoma" is a really, really great thing. Specifically, the fact that the cells were still well-differentiated means that they retained many characteristics of being normal cells, rather than completely wacked-out, unrecognizable cells. Jeremy said that "well-differentiated" cells are much less aggressive and that there is a higher success rate in treating patients in this case. Ironically, early on in this whole process, Jeremy totally predicted that this was the case!! Here is the email that he wrote me on February 16th:

"Another thing I thought of is that it's actually a GOOD thing, in a way, that you've had symptoms for this long. That could well mean that your tumor is low-grade, i.e., a less aggressive histology. A more aggressive cancer would have done more damage more quickly if given this much time. It will probably cry like a little bitch as soon as it sees its first dose of radiation."

And hence, the name "The Bitch" was born.

The second thing in the report which Jeremy deciphered for me is a sentence that reads "There is no angiolymphatic or perineural invasion and a peritumoral lymphocytic response not seen." See what I mean....total mumbo-jumbo!! Anyway, according to Jeremy, this is also great news! In layman's terms, this means that the pathologist looked at all of the blood vessels and the nerves that surrounded the tumor and did not see any sign of an cells having entered these structures, which further indicates that the cancer likely did not spread anywhere else in my body.

I am going off to do a little dance around my house now...I'll check back later! :)