Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma and What I Wish We'd Known: Our Journey With Dave's Diagnosis
Darla in the Desert: hard‑earned lessons from life, the internet, and a desert that melts your patience first. Send ice! Some conversations stay with you. I've had a couple recently with friends navigating scary medical news, and I kept saying the same things — things I wish someone had told us years ago. Time to tell our side more clearly. Dave was diagnosed with adenoid cystic carcinoma — ACC — originating in the maxillary sinus. Treatment was successful, and we had a couple of good years. Then whack-a-mole. It cropped up in the lungs — which is common with ACC. It's rare, slow-moving, and doesn't always play by the rules. It's not contagious, and no, it's not parasitic. The imaging makes that clear. Here's what I'd do differently. THE PET SCAN SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED SOONER. An FDG-PET is the scan that "lights up" active cancer. We didn't get one until this year. In my opinion, that should have been done much earlier. ...