Keep Your Fingers Crossed

Well, my devoted Cake Eater readers, I have yet another scintillating episode of the lymphocele that would not quit for you. I'm under the gun here this morning, so I don't have time to go a searchin' in the archives for the relevant posts to refresh your memories. You can go looking for yourself.

When we last left the story, about two months ago, we'd drained it, then drained it again and sclerosed it with alcohol (and had a catheter inserted. yeuuch.), before it got infected and the catheter had to be pulled. Then I was told we were going to "wait and see" what it did, because it had shrunk, and also because, as Dr. Academic put it, "the more you mess with these things, the worse they become." The problem with this plan of attack, as I saw it, was that I was still in pain, and week before last finally called in not to ask them to reup my pain medication prescription (well, not only) but to see just how long this "wait and see" period was going to last. I updated the main nurse on what was going on, that it seemed how it had shrunk, but that I was still experiencing pain, and that just wasn't acceptable to me. She related this to Dr. Academic, who, again, came back at me with the "the more you mess with these thingsblahblahblah" line. I'd had it. I told the nurse, in a very kind and polite manner, that perhaps it was time for me to seek a second opinion on this. But, being clueless as to just what type of doctor I should go to for said second opinion, I asked her who she thought I should go to. She replied that she thought a general surgeon would be my best bet. Then, in a completely unexpected turn of events, told me she'd ask Dr. Academic who I should go to and would call me back.

When she called back she stunned me further. Dr. Academic, apparently, decided to ante up. She told me that Dr. Academic would now like me to go in for a Pet Scan, a CT Scan and that we'd move up my appointment to see him directly. She said that maybe now would be a good time to figure out why it was inflamed in the first place. She asked me if this would work for me and I said, "Yes, it does." Three days later, I drank a boatload of the two various types of contrast necessary for either scan, and went in first for the Pet scan and then for the CT Scan. It took the better part of the day to accomplish this task, but once it was done, I was happy that we were finally going to get to the bottom of this thing.

The only problem with this scenario is that when the results came in, the Pet Scan showed something surprising: not only was the lymphocele gone entirely, but a lymph node in my left pelvis was glowing. The radioactive sugar solution they shoot you up with before receiving a Pet Scan is designed specifically to look for cancer cells, because they will metabolize the sugar more quickly than regular cells and it will show on the scan. One solitary lymph node, on the side where all the troubles have been lately, lit up, and that generally means there might be cancer there.

All is not lost, however. When Dr. Academic's main nurse called me to related this information, she said Dr. Academic thinks that the lymph node might simply be inflamed, rather than cancerous, and that's why it lit up on the Pet Scan. But he didn't know for sure, and to figure it out, he wanted me to go in for a CT Guided Biopsy, which is scheduled for one o'clock CDT today. GOOD TIMES!

I swear to God I'm going to start glowing in the dark soon because of all these scans. It's just a matter of time, I'm sure, before the husband isn't able to sleep at all because of the radioactive glow I will emit when the lights go down.

The big question, of course, is Is it cancer? Well, I don't know. Dr. Academic doesn't know, which is why he's sending me in for the biopsy, and is why he patently refused to put any odds on either outcome. If it is, that means another ride on the chemo bus. If it isn't, then they'll most likely give me some anti-inflammatories to take. Do I< think it's cancer? No, I don't. Is it possible that the cancer is back? Yes. Anything's possible. Is it probable? No, I don't think it is. Of course, I am Longshot-Girl-Pays-Off when it comes to this crap, but it just doesn't seem likely to me that the cancer would reappear where it had never previously been, but rather in an area that I've been experiencing problems with---and have fiddled with twice---for the past six months or so. It seems unlikely. The "inflamed lymph node" option seems more likely to be the culprit. Or that's at least what I keep telling myself.

I'm tweaked as all hell about this biopsy. I barely slept last night. My stomach is in a rumble this morning, and not just because of the fact that I'm on the "no food or drink" rule before the procedure. I had to email my entire family over the weekend to let them know what was going on, and I hate having to do that. I don't like having to do this biopsy, not only because I think it's probably going to hurt like hell afterwards because of the location, but because I want to get it over with as quickly as possible, in the unlikely event that the pathology lab at the hospital could get the results back to me before the holiday. I doubt I'll get them back before then, but maybe the good fairies will be looking out for me.

Keep your fingers crossed, my devoted Cake Eater readers, that this doesn't turn out to be my death sentence, eh? I mean, it's not every day you go in for a test that could, possibly, determine the cause of your eventual death.

Because if it comes back as cancerous, I'm screwed, my devoted Cake Eater readers. Screwed, I tell ya. If ovarian cancer recurs, well, as I've written here many times before, that's when a cure will be beyond me, or any other ovarian cancer patient. That's when you get "salvage chemo" to make you stay alive longer---and you could live thirty years longer, but the cancer will always be present in your life. I don't want or need that.

Posted by Kathy at June 30, 2008 09:23 AM | TrackBack