A few days before Thanksgiving, we got some news to give thanks for: Deb's latest round of regularly-scheduled testing shows nothing new and nothing that needs treatment.
I had to phrase that very carefully to be accurate. Back in June, 2011, when half her liver was taken out to contain a runaway epithelioid angiomyolipoma, the doctors saw a couple of similar-but-smaller growths elsewhere in her liver. Since then, the suspense has been over whether they would grow like their cousin did.
We've now got several pictures of them taken over the last 17 months, and they seem not to be doing anything. They're still there -- where would they go? -- but they're still less than half a centimeter across and stable.
Since they aren't causing any symptoms, and people without symptoms don't get their livers scanned, it's possible that thousands or even millions of people have similar growths and just never notice them. Still, we're keeping an eye on them. We'll take another picture in about six months.
