And the Verdict is in

I saw my surgeon today, for the results of my recent CT scan from H*LL. He gave me some good news and he gave me some not so good news.

The not so good news is that I have gallstones. Okay, as long as I don't start having some nasty symptoms that would require it to come out immediately, then I'm alright with this. When I was first feeling sick almost two and a half years ago, after an x-ray I was told that I had gallstones and my regular doctor thought that they were what was causing me pain. After going to the ER and having a CT scan among other things, it was discovered that I had a tumor instead. The gallstones haven't bothered me since then, and still aren't, but if they do, then we'll need to get the gall bladder removed. I can deal with this.

The good news is that there is no sign of cancer in my colon, liver, or lungs. YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My surgeon (whom I absolutely adore!) said that if there is a recurrence of colon cancer it would most likely happen in the first two years, so I've passed that critical mark! I will, however, need to have a CT scan once a year until I hit the 5 year mark. That will be August 2010.

What a relief!

Of course I can't dare get through the month of December without getting sick, yuck. Right now I'm coughing a lot and have a splitting sinus headache. Guess I'll be calling the doctor tomorrow. Hopefully he can get me in. Ted isn't feeling great either, but he's not quite as bad as I am.

I'm just really thankful that the prayers have been answered, and in the way that I wanted them to be!

Whew!

Thank goodness the CT scan is over for another year. It was a terrible experience. The nutshell version is that two CT techs tried to get an IV started at the same time. Neither one of them took what I said into account, other than the fact that I have bad veins. Neither one of them looked me in the eye. One of them got a little upset with me when I moved my arm a little. Well, there wasn't any table or anything for my arm to lie on; it was just hanging in mid-air, and sometimes it's hard to keep it still when it's like that.

They made it sound like it was all my fault that the veins are bad and that they were being put out because of it. Oh yeah ladies, when my parents placed the order for me they put a checkmark in the box next to "bad veins."

Give me a freaking break.

After the first attempt at wiggling that puppy all around once it was in, I said "no more hand attempts" and then when they mentioned looking at my foot, I simply said, "NO." After three attempts they went to the radiologist and asked him if the IV contrast was really necessary and he said it was. Oh gee, what fun. An ER nurse finally came in and got into a vein after a few minutes, but then the vein blew. She finally got into a surface vein on the inside of my upper right arm.

What a mess.

The tech that actually did the CT scan is the same man who has done it all the other times and he's just wonderful. He's kind, compassionate, sympathetic, and looks me right in the eye. He knows I have a reaction to the IV contrast, so I had taken pills earlier, and he put the contrast into my IV really slow. That helped tremendously. He's fantastic...but the CT techs weren't. They need a little sensitivity training.

Since I know that colon cancers usually grow very slowly and my colonoscopy in June came back clear, common sense would say that everything will be fine with my CT results. HOWEVER, until I hear it from my surgeon, I'll feel like I'm just living my life in limbo.

I hate this.

Not a Day Goes By...

Not a single day goes by in which I don't think about having cancer. You'd think that by now, almost two and a half years after my diagnosis, it would be taking a back seat in my life, but it's not. Just when I think I can get through a day, it rears its ugly head in one form or another. I try not to talk about it with my friends and family all the time, but sometimes I just can't help it. Hopefully if they get tired of hearing about it, they'll just tell me to "get over it!"

Believe me, I've tried to get over it, but it's not that simple.

When I turned the calendar over to December, there it was, staring me in the face. FOUR appointments (2 procedures and 2 doctor visits) coming up this month. All of them were set up by the different doctors' offices and I was sent a notice as to when they were. I spent almost an entire lunch period one day making calls, trying to get these things rescheduled for either after school or during break. Unfortunately, I was able to get 2 out of the 4 rescheduled, but the other 2 have to be during school hours.

The "fun" starts tomorrow. I have a CT scan scheduled for 4:00 pm. It was originally scheduled for today at 1:00 pm. I'm just so excited about this. Because I have a reaction to whatever it is they inject during the procedure, I have to take pills beforehand. I have EIGHT pills to take at 4:00 AM! I have 8 more pills to take at 2:00 pm. Of course I also need to start drinking the yummy contrast in the early afternoon too. Oh yes, and the highlight will be trying to get an IV started on my deep, roaming, tiny (with poor blood return) veins. I wonder how big my bruise will be THIS time.

Oh yeah, I'm really excited about this. And I just hope and pray that nothing shows up.

(I promise...happier posts are coming soon.)