Does a Tumor Hurt Before it Shrinks?

Remember the tumor in my psoas muscle? I have not mentioned it here for so long, we might all have forgotten about it.

Anyway, when I went for that checkup with Dr Morris, I was soooo pleased to report that there had been nary a twinge from that tumor since after the second day of fabulous CyberKnife treatment. I took a lot of comfort from that. I love the idea of the radiation kicking that tumor's behind.

Well, in the last couple of days, there have been a few twinges from my psoas muscle. It's not anything like I felt before (which was a burning, intense pain in my hip and lower back). What I have now are little twinges of discomfort, more like an awareness or a rumor of bad news.

So I surfed the web looking for anyone who says that a tumor might start hurting again just before the chemo makes it shrink. I found three little references to such a phenomenon! But those three references were buried amongst 170,000 general references about tumor pain; not exactly the overwhelming validation of my theory that I was hoping for.

I plan to ask Dr Reidel next week, when I see him, if the twinges could be an indication that the chemo is working.

I would love to think that the chemo is making trouble for that tumor.

I figure, that is a sort of lovely thing to think. Reassuring. Since it is such a lovely thing to think, I am just going to keep thinking it till Dr Reidel answers my question next week. Chances are, there is no answer to a question like that. The real answer will come when we do the next scan. Did the tumor shrink? Then by golly that discomfort might have been a precursor symptom to the shrinkage!

The next scan will occur after the next cycle of chemo is complete.

Hang in there; four weeks to go.