Quick update, prompted by Hiredgun's recent thread. My oncologist continued to appeal the PET scan denial, and the third time was a charm. The scan was done in May and showed "no abnormal uptake of glucose, consistent with treated tumor", but a CT scan the week after showed at least one liver lesion had gotten slightly larger, so my oncologist changed my meds a bit starting in June. I had another CT after the first month of the new cocktail, and the mets are stable!
Liver surgery turned out not to be an option after all. The report on my first abdominal CT scan mentioned only two liver lesions. When the PET scan report mentioned only one of them, I asked my oncologist to review the PET, and the CT which was done the week after that, with the radiologist. Radiologist #2 saw additional liver lesions, plus numerous small spots in my lungs, too tiny to biopsy but "suspicious for metastases". He showed these to my oncologist, both on the May scan and on the original CT from February. They were there all along, but for whatever reason, the first radiologist didn't mention them in the report. Since then, I've found out I can ask for the same radiologist to read my scans, and I'm thinking of doing so. The upshot of it all is that I'm no longer a candidate for surgical removal of the two large liver growths. I was pretty upset about it at the time, because if I'd proceeded based on the first radiologist's report, I could have put myself through major surgery with very little chance of benefiting from it since it would have left many metastases untouched in my liver, and done nothing at all for my lungs (assuming the suspicions of Radiologist #2 are justified). However, in the large view, I'm better off now than I was in February when I thought there were only two growths. In February, they were still progressing, and now, even though there are more than I knew about when I was first diagnosed as stage IV, they aren't growing. That's a good thing.
Meanwhile, my motto continues to be "it isn't denial if I just decide to think about something other than cancer most of the time". So recently I have been thinking about my remodel, which is now underway--I decided to go ahead with the whole project, rather than the minimal "repairs only" I had originally planned, and about how I will get my cat and my mom's cat, which has developed some habits unsuited to life in a brand new, fully carpeted, retirement community, to coexist in a 750 square foot house without WW3 starting.
We're all here for you. The body has a wonderful ability to heal. Picture those spots shrinking and picture your body gulping down and throwing out any other little bad cells that are floating around.
I hope the unsuitable habits don't include thinking outside the box! 
