A negative that is totally positive

How many times in your life has a doctor called you at 8:15 at night? Not too often, right.

So it's a testament to Dr. Lee Zehngebot, the Orlando oncologist who helped save my life, that he called a short time ago to give me the abbreviated version of the results of my PET and CT scans taken Monday.

In short, he's "100 percent" confident that I have no cancer in me. The PET scan, which detects probable areas of the body in which cancer cells are growing, was negative.

Whew!

He said that the weird cyst-like confab in my chest, though, has grown since the last set of scans in August. While he's confident it's not a cancerous tumor growing, he's not sure exactly what it is.

Most likely, he said, it's "some kind of collection of fluid."

So Dr. Z said I should call surgeon Dr. Joseph Boyer in the morning to set up an appointment for next week. Dr. Boyer is the head of thoracic surgery at Florida Hospital, and the guy who cut and filleted my stomach and esophagus into a working organ from a cancerous one.

I imagine the next few weeks or months might involve a biopsy or two and possibly a surgery. But at least the doctors won't be treating a cancerous tumor.

And that's the best news this holiday season.