Hi Everyone,

This post is slightly different but i'm hoping it will ease the worry of someone out there, whilst waiting for an MRI.

My dad has a motorcycle accident a few weeks ago and broke his ribs. At hospital they did a CT scan of his body to check for any damage to his organs and they incidentally found the following which was detailed on his discharge notes (I have loosely translated the medical terms):

'incidental findings of slightly hypoattenuating (dark) heterogeneous (structure with dissimilar components) area of the pancreatic head with indeterminate splenic lesions and hepatic (liver) cystic lesions'

He was scheduled an MRI as an outpatient that same week. Whilst waiting for the resuts I googled  'heterogeneous hypoattentuating pancreas' and up comes that these are the key hallmarks of aggressive Pancreatic cancer (Adenocarcinoma).

As you can imagine, I have been in absolute pieces over this whilst we were waiting for over 3 weeks for the MRI results (he was made an appointment to come back to the hospital for the results, another worry!). I scoured the internet for anything else that it could be to put my mind at ease but time and time again, everything pointed to aggressive pancreatic cancer (with potential metastasis to the liver). When I found anything benign that was remotely similar to the CT findings, there was always a caveat of that particular benign lesion being extremely rare or something in the description that ruled it out in some way. I cried almost every day in anticipation of the results.

Today we received the results, all benign. The pancretic lesions were fat deposits, the splenic lesions were something to do with the blood vessel, and the liver lesions were just a collection of blood that apparently some people get for resons unknown.

I'm writing this because there must be so many people looking for reassurance online, and from personal experience, all you get is the opposite. I'm in no way exaggerating when I say that I was entirely convinced with a high level of certainty that we were about to get a diagnosis of Adenocarcinoma to the degree that I was researching clinical trials and top doctors in that field.

I also noticed that even on forums like this, so many times people are awaiting CT/MRI scans and looking for reassurance, only for them never to post again, and the outcome to never be known (likely because all was fine and they carried on with their life, which is great knews but doesn't leave much hope for others looking for reassurance on the same thing).

I guess I just wanted to let people know that no matter how bad it may seem, and no matter what google tells you with such certainty, it doesn't mean its true. My Dad is absolutely fine.

I hope for everyone that you receive good news, but even for those that don't there is always hope. My husband has been following his research long before this situation and truly believes in the work of Dr. Thomas Seyfried who has a book and many videos online which are worth looking at.

I wish you all nothing but health, love and happiness. Don't ever give up. 

x