Lulu, thanks for taking the time to write such a long and in depth post. This gives us a much better picture of your timeline.

You sound young, if you dont mind me asking you age? Being young is good! It means you are stronger and can fight this better than someone say in their 60s or 70s (sorry Jim).

Your English is perfectly understandable! So do not feel any hesitation to write because of lack of understanding. Italy!!! Ive been to your wonderful country! I love it!!! Of course I saw many tourist places like the Spanish Steps (full of flowers), the ruins, Trevi Fountain, the canals of Venice and the Square and church on the main island of Venice(sorry forget the names). Oh how I wish I could go back in time to that trip!!! I was much younger and in good health. One thing I dont like is your explanation of the health care in Italy. It sounds like it is terrible to navigate when you have a serious problem. I much prefer the US where my family physician is who first told me I may have cancer. But, I am one of the few lucky patients who was diagnosed very early. This disease is a sneaky one and many times the symptoms hide and do not present themselves until a patient is very ill (Stage IV). There have only been very few Italians on this forum, and unfortunately none for a long time. So unfortunately we do not know about what places you would get the best care. There may be some members from the UK and France who have a general idea but those members havent been on in a while.

I hope your test results show something, of course we do not want it to be cancer. But you do need to get to the bottom of this and know what is going on. Its been a very long time to have this issue and not find the source of your problems. Please let us know the outcome. Even though we are not local to you, we can still help you if it turns out to be cancer. At least we can point you in the right direction. Are there larger cancer facilities in Rome? That could be your next step if the current doctors do not help you. Oh yeah, almost forgot! This should help you feel better... I havent ever seen a false negative on a PET scan before. PET scans tend to light up for inflammation which is what makes them have the false positives. Best wishes!