I’ve said before how the date of when I became a medical miracle is a bit hard for me to determine. I’m not sure if I should consider the day I had the MRI that showed my tumors were shrinking as the day. Or maybe the day one of my doctors emailed me to say that it looked like the tumors were shrinking. Or when my liver surgeon called me to tell me for sure that my tumors were shrinking and that he recommended I cancel my surgery. So even though the date isn’t really a date that I got any information, I have considered the date that my surgery was supposed to happen as the marker for being a medical miracle. And yesterday, it marked 3 years since I was supposed to have surgery.
I don’t necessarily do anything to celebrate being a medical miracle, but I do acknowledge it and take time to remember how lucky I am. I know that if my tumors didn’t shrink, surgery was necessary. My tumors were big enough that they could be life-threatening. Not having surgery would have been a very dumb choice. But even though I knew that I needed that surgery, I wasn’t looking forward to it and I was scared about so much. I’m so glad that I didn’t have to have that surgery or deal with the recovery. I haven’t had abdominal surgery before, but I imagine the recovery would be worse than it was for my hip surgery. And there would other things during recovery that would have been tough for me.
One of the things about recovery that scared me was not being able to go to Orangetheory. I was worried that I would lose all momentum that I had been building in my workouts and that I would be so far back when I finally could work out again. Of course, right now I technically have no way to go to my workouts. I am working out at home, but it’s not the same. So it’s a bit funny that something that I was so worried about is a reality that I am dealing with right now. But I am lucky that there are OTF at Home workouts that I could do and that wouldn’t have been an option if I did have surgery.
I was worried about what the surgery might do for my mental health. I didn’t share this too much, but I was worried that having a big scar might make my body dysmorphia worse or that something about having surgery would trigger my panic/anxiety disorder or even my eating disorder. Surgery is a big unknown so there isn’t a way to know how you would react to it. I was hoping that surgery wouldn’t affect my mental health, but it was a big concern that I had about it.
And I was also worried that the surgery wouldn’t be the only one I needed. I knew that I might need another surgery in the future to get rid of one of the tumors if they couldn’t get all of them in one surgery. And I had been told that they could take my gallbladder out when doing the surgery, but I worried that something would happen where they couldn’t and I would need that surgery at another time. I’m actually very lucky when it comes to my gallbladder because it turns out that many of the issues I was having with it was related to the tumors and their size, so even though I didn’t have surgery I have had very few attacks in the past 3 years. I technically still need it out, but it’s not as necessary as it was before.
I am grateful every day that I didn’t have to have surgery. I’m grateful that I didn’t have to go through what could have been a big change in my life. I didn’t have to deal with as many unknowns (even though I do still deal with some unknowns now regarding my tumors). I was able to keep living my life as normal without a disruption. But even though I am grateful every day, I am always extra grateful when it’s my medical miracle anniversary. It’s been 3 years since I have known that my tumors are shrinking and there is still no medical explanation for it. But I feel so lucky that it happened to me.
I am supposed to have another MRI in about 6 months, and if the tumors continue to shrink, that will be my last one scheduled. I might have them every couple of years, but I won’t need annual ones any more if they are smaller. And if by some chance they grow, I will have surgery and I will be ok if that happens. But for now, I’m just focused on being grateful for what happened to me.
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A Non-Surgery Anniversary (or Another Year Of Being A Medical Miracle)
Medical Miracle Anniversary (or A Year Of My Liver Being A Badass)
Taking Back A Medical Miracle (or Getting My Eyes Checked Again)
A Tumor Miracle (or I Wasn’t Expecting This)
