Tuesday 5/23 - consultation with Dr. M (Columbus)

  • Dr. M thinks it's likely to be malignant but didn't give any probabilities and was very resistant to speculating any further than that. He says a few possibilities are Ewing sarcoma (the most common for my age group; aggressive), lymphoma (somewhat less aggressive compared to Ewing), and an aneurysmal bone cyst. He suggests not doing further personal research on those yet because we really don't know. (We'll see about that!)
  • Some good news, though, is that he thinks it's very unlikely that the recent onset of some heartburn is related (e.g., stomach cancer).
  • If it is Ewing, I'd likely need chemo and surgery (usually ~1 year of treatment). Again, though, he was resistant to elaborating further at this point and said we need more testing.
  • Specifically--to establish a definitive diagnosis--he thinks I'll need a CT-guided biopsy as well as probably a bone scan/ chest CT/ further bloodwork.
  • He's contacting sarcoma experts that he knows at University of Toronto (apparently he's quite high-ranking and knows a lot of potentially key people) to see if I can get a quick appointment and I should hear back today or tomorrow about when I can be seen there. He does suggest that it's pretty urgent but that a delay of a few weeks would not be a big deal-- a few months, though, would be.
  • The recommended site, U of Toronto, is good and will send a referral to Dr. F. He did confirm, though, that there would be a whole oncology group that would work together on the case.

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