Report of last Wednesdays CT scan...hmmm...

Just received report of last Wednesday's CT scan. I was told that I woud be unable to get the films until the end of the week because the '"dark room was 'down.'"
Okay--here is report--of CT scan of the chest, abdomen and pelvis w/contrast done on 11-26 -03.
"CHEST: The lung firelds are clear. I detect no hilar or mediastinal mass or adenopathy. There are surgical clips in both axilla; patient is status post bilateral mastectomies."
ABDOMEN AND PELVIS: There is a solitary 1.8 cm diameter oval hypodense lesion in the dome of the medial segment left lobe of liver just beneat the diaphragm;
there is some peripheral enhancement along one portion of this lesion. This may represent a hemangioma, but the appearance is still nonspecific. No other liver lesions are identified. The speen, pancreas, kidneys and adrenals appear unremarkable. There are several intrarenal, periaortic and aortocaval lymph nodes, most measure up to 1.0 cm in size. There is one aortocaval node measuring about 2.5 x 0.5 cm.
IMPRESSION:
1. No abnormality noted in the chest.
2. 1.8 cm sized lesion medial segment left lobe of liver just beneath the dome of the diaphragm. This ay represent a hemangioma. This may be more accurately characterized as a triple phase CT scan of the liver, however, that also may not be definitive.
3. Several mildly enlarged periaortic and aortocaval lymph nodes as described."
It is obvious that the radiologist did not compare this report with the last scan/report of the 3-phase CT. He is the same radiologist who read the
3-phase CT scan that was done last July.
I put a call into my oncologist to discuss the results of the report. I received a call back from the nurse--that they couldn't find my previous films to compare. I then called radiology and talked to the gal in charge of films.
She said all my films were there--they were in 4 jackets. The tech. only gave the radiologist my most recent jacket rather than going through and getting all the CT scans. The radiologist didn't bother to look any further.
I am most concerned about the 2.5 cm lesion in the aortocaval node. My first
CT scan report indicated that it was less than 1.0 cm. I am not sure of the others. The last 2 CT scans reported 2 lesions in the liver. The last 4 CT scans reported that the single lesion, which may be an hemangioma was 2.0 cm.
Either they have shrunk and/or gone away with current meds or ?
I am not quite sure where/what an aortocaval node is but researching it I come up with retroperitoneum, displacement of pancreas and even spinal involvement...hmmm....

For what it's worth, two years ago I had what was originally thought to be a tumor on the pancreas. Because I was certain in my 'gut' that it wasn't, I insisted on ultrasounds to determine if it 'grew' before submitting to further tests.

It took 7 months of watch and wait, with dire mumblings from my GP and onc.
During that time the ultrasounds got more and more precise, but EACH featured a different, though relatively same size for this "anomylous (sp?) mass. --
Finally they even had the tumor over a centimeter 'larger' than the original scan showed.--- Except it wasn't. The measuring just got more complex.

It was finally determined this wasn't a tumor, but a simple and common polyp that any old time GP would have picked up on, but because I'd been a cancer patient it automatically "had" to be malignant according to my onc. -- It wasn't and my gut instincts were correct.

The real point here is that each U/S but the first and last one had a different technician who had to put his or her own "stamp" on watching and reporting on this "tumor" to determine if it was growing. First and last showed
NO growth whatsoever. -- It ultimately turned out they were reporting on slightly altered angles, etc. -- Much like the blind men and the elephant joke.