In Reply to: notes on the definition of a sarcoma to understand what it is, really posted by joe on June 24, 2008 at 01:11:54:
that's what the doctor said. She said that I have a malignant fibrous histiocytoma to be exact. She was transferring to me what the pathologists determined from the second block of slides which they got from KonKuk. She also said that it was a type of sarcoma. I told her my history, from the muscle pain which was before even being admitted to the hospital for pleural effusion. She also, in turn, explained the CT scan I would be taking and how it was different from a PET scan (I don't understand fully this difference yet, as in how a sarcoma/cancer can show up in a CT ... apparently, that is true; thus, the PET patients like myself receive after getting a diagnosis for cancer/sarcoma is to look for metastases.
BAsically, looks like KonKuk may have made their first mistakes:
-- was initially thought to be a spider bite, then possibly an abscess or cyst, then finally a tumor beneath the skin. Since sarcoma doesn't usually present ON the surface of the skin, in the beginning mine was treated as if it was a dermatological type tumor, possibly melanoma. I got an incorrect diagnosis from my biopsy, atypical fibroxanthoma, and only got the pleomorphic sarcoma diagnosis after samples were sent out of state