Category Archives: Health

Some More Virtual Therapy (or Trying Another Medication)

Posted on March 12, 2020 | Comments Off on Some More Virtual Therapy (or Trying Another Medication)

I’ve been doing my appointments with my therapist virtually for a while. It’s been a great setup for me because I don’t have to deal with driving in traffic or paying for parking. I know there are some rules about my therapist needing to see me every so often, but I believe that the video chat appointments fill that requirement.

But with all the issues with COVID-19, I was even more grateful for being able to do my appointment at home. I don’t want to be around people when I don’t need to. And it turns out that they have been converting all the in-person appointments to virtual ones, so even if I had a regular appointment originally scheduled I would have had a virtual one.

Most of my therapy appointments are about checking in with how I feel on my medications. It’s not as much about talking things out as it used to be (or as some people think therapy is all about). I’m not saying those things aren’t valuable or what therapy should be about, it’s just not what my current appointments are about. I’ve done a ton of talking things out, now we are working through finding a solution.

I’ve been doing pretty ok with Vyvanse for a long time, but lately, I’ve noticed it not taking the edge off the same way it used to. It’s something that I’ve become more aware of and I’ve been tracking it knowing I could discuss it at this appointment. And I did bring that up to my therapist this time. I said that I didn’t know if my body was getting used to the dosage but that I didn’t necessarily want to increase it. And she agreed with me because I am toward the top dosage that has been studied. There are people taking double what I take, but that’s not recommended nor are there a lot of things known about the long-term effects of doing that.

So my therapist recommended that I should consider trying adding another medication to my plan. I’m definitely open to doing that, but I also am hesitant about that. The last time I added a new medication, it didn’t go well. But I also know that I’ve added medications several times with no issues so I can’t just think about the rare times that it wasn’t so good. And we did go over some of the medications that I’ve taken before and how I reacted to them.

There have been a few studies about different medications that people take for anxiety or depression that can help with getting into recovery from an eating disorder. I have taken some of these medications with no success or causing some bad side effects. So those were immediately removed from consideration. What I will be adding will be a different medication that is also a mood stabilizer. The idea of taking a mood stabilizer is that it can increase patience and reduce impulsive behavior. Both of those things could be good in multiple aspects of my life, but it makes a lot of sense with my eating disorder. So I agreed to try out this medication to see if it helps.

I’m going to starting taking a half dose for a week before moving on to the full dose my therapist wants me to be on. And after 2 months, I’ll be doing another virtual appointment to check in and see if it’s helping me. Of course, if I have bad side effects as I did on the last medication, I can message her and we will create a plan for me to go off of it. But I’m trying to stay positive and hope for the best. I want there to be no bad side effects and only the positive side effects that I want to help me.

This medication isn’t as strong as the last one I tried so it might take a while for me to see any results or side effects. That’s why my appointment is set for 2 months from now. Most people don’t notice a change for almost a month, so that gives me a month to see any changes and a month to decide if I like those changes. I’m not thinking that this is going to be a miracle medication and make everything better, but anything that helps would be so amazing.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Isolated Therapy Session (or My Anxiety Is Normal) Default ThumbnailAn Easy Therapist Check-In (or Virtual Appointments Make Things Easier) Default ThumbnailMoving Forward With Therapy (or Educating Myself) Default ThumbnailAnother Therapy Check In (or Someone Sees Progress) Default ThumbnailA Super Easy Therapy Appointment (or Just Doing A Check-In) Default ThumbnailIn Person Therapy (or Changing Some Things Up)

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Another Attempt At A Reset (or Feeling Sick Got Me Into A Bad Routine)

Posted on January 29, 2020 | Comments Off on Another Attempt At A Reset (or Feeling Sick Got Me Into A Bad Routine)

When I was feeling sick from antibiotics, I dealt with a lot of random symptoms. Many of them were similar to what I deal with each month with pain and nausea, but they weren’t being resolved by the things I usually do to feel better. I was also dealing with other symptoms that made me just feel awful.

I was able to work and go to my workouts, but that’s about all I could do. I was exhausted because I was waking up constantly at night. I wasn’t eating well because I went from not being hungry to feeling so hungry and nothing seemed to be what I wanted. And I wasn’t drinking enough water (which is a rare issue for me to have since I tend to overhydrate) because for some reason drinking water was making me feel very full and my stomach was hurting.

I’m not proud of what I was doing while I was feeling sick because they really weren’t the best choices for me. The sleep issue was one that I couldn’t help too much, even though I probably could have tried to go to bed earlier so I would have maybe gotten a bit more sleep. But whatever sleep I would have gotten would have been interrupted, no matter how early I went to bed. That’s been a bit easier to get back to my normal routine than getting my eating back has been.

I didn’t do anything as bad as I have done in the past with binge episodes, but they weren’t good either. I was making bad choices constantly and I’m paying for it now. I don’t feel like myself and I just feel like I’m recovering from poor nutrition choices and I’m not feeling better. Fortunately, this is just a general uneasy feeling and not a sick feeling like the week before.

I was finally done with antibiotics over the weekend and I started working back toward what I know I need to be doing. But it hasn’t been easy to do, just like every other time I try to have better habits. And I’ve done this attempt so many times in the past and I know how frustrating it can be for me. But I have to do it because there really isn’t another choice for me.

I’m trying to get back to some basics with food. As much as I want to learn how to cook a lot of good options for myself, I also know that having too many options can be a bad thing for me. I need to be a bit more regimented in what I keep in my house and what I might each for each meal. It’s not the most fun thing to do or super interesting, but it’s a way to reset myself before I focus on adding more things back in. And I’ve been wanting to do the autoimmune protocol diet for a while so I might not be adding things back in once I do reset things for myself. But that’s not something I’m focusing on right now.

Right now, it’s about making sure I’m getting some good food into my body every day, even if that’s not all I eat all the time. And I need to get back to drinking more water on a regular schedule so I can stay hydrated but make sure I don’t start overhydrating myself again. I’m not too focused on eating on a regular schedule since that is a much bigger struggle for me that I don’t need to worry about right now. But I do need to make sure that I eat enough so I don’t have horrible cravings.

As things are so often in my life, it’s a huge balancing act to figure out the right combination of foods and schedule so that I’m not swinging too far one way or another. And while weight loss isn’t the point for me right now with trying to reset myself, I know it will be a result of my efforts because the poor choices I was making last week did make me gain weight.

Hopefully, in a week or so I will be back to a slightly more normal situation and I can focus on improving it more from that point. But I need to get back to my normal first before I make more changes. I’ve made the mistake of trying to do too much at one time with fixing my eating and I have seen it backfire. So I’m going to go slowly this time and hopefully I can prevent the issues I’ve had in the past. But if nothing else, I just want to be back to my normal and reset myself so I’m not feeling like I went so far back to old habits and I’m stuck there.

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Posted in Food, Health, Tough Stuff

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Back To Back Medical Issues (or I Guess My Body Gave Me A Sign)

Posted on January 22, 2020 | Comments Off on Back To Back Medical Issues (or I Guess My Body Gave Me A Sign)

When I was through my pain and nausea last week, I was so happy about it. I had when I feel awful and I try to make the most of the time I have when I’m feeling good. I was excited about this past weekend because I thought I would finally be feeling up for doing things. I had some tentative plans to see friends and there was a birthday party I was supposed to go to. And I felt pretty sure that I’d be able to accomplish those things.

I was feeling fine when I had my workout on Saturday and went home after that to shower and get ready for my weekend plans. But right after I took a shower, it felt like I hit a wall. I almost felt like I came down with the flu or something, but I was missing a lot of the symptoms I would have had if that was true. I just was exhausted and just felt drained. I ended up not making it to anything that I had planned to do that evening and spent my night on the couch watching tv and napping.

I had hoped that maybe I was just really tired and that’s why I felt that off, but on Sunday I woke up and noticed that my auto-immune disease was having a high flare day. Sometimes when I’m dealing with a flare day it’s fine and I can go on normally, I just might be a bit slower or not as enthusiastic as normal. But there are other times where it just takes it out of me and it seems like all my energy goes toward the flare day and I can’t do anything else. I assumed that this had to be the reason why I was feeling off the night before. Maybe my body knew this was coming and it was fighting it before it really hit me. So I took it easy on myself on Sunday and figured that I would be feeling better the next day.

But on Sunday night, I had yet another medical issue. I don’t know if it was a UTI or a bladder infection, but they are close enough to the same thing and they have very similar symptoms. This didn’t really hit me until after I went to bed on Sunday so I think I was a bit too sleepy to realize what was happening. But on Monday, there was no question that I needed antibiotics. Because I’ve been treated for this before, I can get a new prescription after a phone appointment. But this still took several hours to get done. Finally, I was able to get my antibiotics and I know that in a few days I’ll finally feel better.

Of course, now I’m dealing with the side effects of the antibiotics and those aren’t fun. Pain and nausea are the main side effects I get, but at least these aren’t as bad as they were last week. But it’s still annoying that I was so excited to have a good week and it ended up being a lot of medical issues piling up on me at once. I wish that these had hit me when I was already feeling awful so that I could have gotten it all done with at once. But bodies don’t work that way and I feel like sometimes dealing with medical issues is the norm that my body likes.

Looking back at my weekend after knowing what happened, I guess hitting that wall on Saturday was a sign that my body was starting to fight something big. Or maybe it was fighting 2 things. I’m not sure if my flare day was also a sign of the infection I would end up getting, but to me, it makes sense that it could be. I am super grateful that these issues are ones that I’m used to experiencing so it wasn’t too awful to figure out. And I knew what to do so I could take care of myself quickly. I still have a few more days of antibiotics so I’m not making plans for this week. I am expecting to be dealing with the side effects until I’m done taking it, but if that ends up not being true then I can just be excited that I was wrong.

I guess it’s a good thing that my body warned me that something was happening, but I didn’t really know what it was at the time. And now, I’m a bit worried that I will be paranoid every time my body hits a wall like that. But hopefully, this was a really rare situation and in the future that I’m just tired it will be due to me not sleeping enough or something simple like that.

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Skipping A Transformation Challenge (or This Was An Easy Choice For Me)

Posted on January 21, 2020 | Comments Off on Skipping A Transformation Challenge (or This Was An Easy Choice For Me)

Yesterday, Orangetheory kicked off their transformation challenge. I’ve done the transformation challenge several times, and I’ve even got second in one! I like how OTF does the challenge because it’s not based on total weight loss but the percentage of weight loss. So it’s a bit fairer for everyone who is doing it no matter how much weight they are looking to lose.

OTF doesn’t focus on weight loss other than doing these challenges. The focus on the workouts is about getting stronger and being healthier. I like that that’s what the focus is because I think I would be getting frustrated if the focus was more on weight. My weight fluctuates so much throughout a month so the number on the scale can be annoying. But seeing that I can lift heavier weights is something that I take pride in and see a more linear path. But I know that so many people (myself included) do work out so that they can lose weight. But it’s just not the main focus for me anymore.

Between my fluctuations each week and me still trying to recover from my eating disorder, my weight journey is just crazy right now. For example, I gained about 15 pounds right before I had my period last time and it slowly came off over a week. That’s not too weird for me, but I know it’s weird. And I have been working on not getting down on myself when it happens because I’m always worried that the gain was due to food and not hormones. And even though I haven’t really been able to lose any weight recently, I know that I’m smaller than I was a few months ago. I know people say that muscle weighs more than fat, and I’m guessing that’s what happened, but it’s still a hard thing to believe in my head.

So for me, weight isn’t really something I’m trying to think about. I do have a scale so I can check in with myself or keep myself accountable or realistic when I need to, but I’m not obsessed with the scale as I used to be. When my last scale broke, I didn’t even think about replacing it for almost a month. And I didn’t care what scale I bought, even though in the past it has caused me to almost have a panic attack when I’ve had to get a new scale. It’s really nice to have that stress out of my life. I do still worry about weight from time to time, but it doesn’t control my thoughts as it did before.

I’m not sure what brought this change to me, but I think it has to do with struggling for so long to try to lose weight and not see any results. I have wanted to give up so many times on trying, but at the same time, I know that I have to continue to make good changes in my life as I am right now. Even if the number on the scale doesn’t go down, I know I am living a healthier lifestyle than I was before. And being healthier is what I need to focus on, even if my appearance doesn’t make it look like I’m doing that.

Because of my current thoughts about weight and weight loss, I didn’t even think about doing the transformation challenge. I love what the challenge is about and if I was in a different headspace I would do it. But right now, I know signing up for the challenge isn’t because I think I could win or that my weight would be any different at the end. I would basically be signing up to prove that my weight fluctuations are still there and that it doesn’t matter. And I don’t need to do that for myself.

I know some people use the challenge as a way to motivate them to go at least 3 days a week to OTF. If I needed that motivation, I think that would be a great way to get into a regular workout schedule. But I’m already going 4 days a week almost every week, so I don’t need the challenge to push me to do that. And I’m sure for most people, the prizes are enough motivation to make major lifestyle changes that can last beyond the challenge. But for me, that doesn’t work and I have felt bad when I did make a change for the challenge that I couldn’t maintain.

I am super excited for all my friends who are doing the transformation challenge and I’m going to be cheering them on to win. But for me, I just didn’t see a reason to sign up considering what my life is like right now. I didn’t feel guilty or bad about not doing it, I just have come to the realization that this type of challenge isn’t right for me right now. But maybe in the future, I will be in a better place with my eating disorder and my weight and I will sign up for a challenge and win!

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Default ThumbnailWeight Loss Challenge Time (or Not Worrying About Winning) Default ThumbnailAnother Weight Loss Challenge (or Getting Back On Track) Default ThumbnailIt’s Not Really A Transformation Challenge Fail (or Trying To Be Less Competitive With Myself) Default ThumbnailDoing A Transformation Challenge (or Maybe I Need To Change Things Up) Default ThumbnailGuess Stopping The Medication Was The Right Choice (or Maybe I Should Have Read More Into The Side Effects) Default ThumbnailGetting Weighed In (or A New Orangetheory Challenge)

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Getting Used To A New Dentist Routine (or This Wasn’t The Appointment I Expected)

Posted on January 8, 2020 | Comments Off on Getting Used To A New Dentist Routine (or This Wasn’t The Appointment I Expected)

I’ve only had my new dentists for a short period of time, so things are still new to me. I had my old dentist for a long time and that routine and process were familiar to me. It still didn’t help with my fear of the dentist, but at least I knew what to expect. I figured with the new dentists that it would take some time because they were also figuring out their plan. What I might have experienced at my first appointment might not be what they continue to do. So when I went in for my cleaning this week, I knew that things might be different. I just wasn’t expecting how things ended up going.

In the past, I would have my cleanings 3 times a year and at one of those appointments, I would have the full exam with the dentist along with x-rays. But because of how the new dentists run things, and since they are the ones that assist with all the cleanings, now all my cleanings will have an exam too. I won’t be doing x-rays every time, but I’ll probably have them more often.

Whenever I have a cleaning, and even more when I have an exam, I’m worried that something will be discovered with my teeth. It’s happened so many times and I know that it will continue to happen in the future. But I try my best to make sure I do everything I can for my teeth. But because of having genetically bad teeth, I know that I can’t prevent everything. And I will always have problems with my teeth discovered that will need to be fixed.

And unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened at this appointment.

While doing the exam, my dentist discovered 2 spots that weren’t quite cavities yet but would become cavities if I didn’t get them taken care of soon. They would need to be drilled and filled just like cavities and there was nothing I could do to fix them on my own. It’s exactly what I’m afraid will happen and honestly, it is probably what keeps me fearful of the dentist.

My dentist gave me a few options about what to do about them. I obviously wanted to fix them, and she said they could do it in that appointment so I wouldn’t have to come back another day. And because of where they were on my teeth and how small they were, I probably wouldn’t need any numbing medications. I wasn’t sure about that, but I was willing to give it a try. So we did both the cleaning and the fillings at the same time.

We did the first part of the cleaning before doing the drilling. Even though my dentist is new, she is very aware of how bad my fear is and she was trying to do everything she could to make the appointment better for me. She promised that if the drilling hurt too much that she could numb me, but she really wanted to try without it because she didn’t think I would need it. And she said that the drilling would only be about 20 seconds between both spots.

I wasn’t sure that she was right that I could do it without any numbing medications, but I promised to try. And there was only a split second that I felt anything. And what I did feel wasn’t too painful, it was just like an intense cleaning. And then the drilling was done. I think the worst part was that there is a burning smell after they do the drilling. But that’s nothing. It made me wonder about how bad all my other appointments with fillings were and maybe the worst part was getting numb.

The spots were quickly filled and they used the light to cure them and then the dentist did the rest of the cleaning with polishing my teeth. That’s it. I was done with the entire thing in under an hour which was crazy! I was expecting it to be much longer, especially since they were adding in the fillings. But they were super efficient and I really appreciate that. Anything that makes my time at the dentist faster makes me feel better about it.

I’ll have my next appointment in 4 months, which is normal for me. And now I know it will be both the cleaning and the exam so that won’t be a big surprise to me. But I will probably still be worried that they will discover something wrong. I don’t know if that feeling will ever go away because it keeps coming true from time to time. But at least now, I have a slightly better feeling about how things will be handled if that does happen.

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I Guess It’s Good I Have Time Off (or My Body Never Goes Easy On Me)

Posted on December 24, 2019 | Comments Off on I Guess It’s Good I Have Time Off (or My Body Never Goes Easy On Me)

I’m sorry in advance that this is going to be a shorter post. But hopefully you all understand.

Because of the timing of the holidays this year, I have several days off from work. It’s the longest break I’ve had in a while and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with my time. I knew I wanted to relax a bit and catch up on some fun things, but it looks like my body had a different idea with how to start things off.

I don’t know exactly what caused this, but it looks like something I ate on Sunday gave me food poisoning. I woke up on Monday, I had very intense stomach cramps. These were similar to the cramps I usually get from my period, but they were much higher up in my body. I’m grateful that they didn’t cause nausea, but they were extremely painful. My body was almost going numb when the pain was the most intense. I tried my best to have a normal Monday (since that’s normally my day off), but it was impossible. I spent almost the entire day sleeping and trying to get through the pain.

I think whatever caused the food poisoning has worked its way out of my system or isn’t affecting me anymore, but I’m still feeling a bit weak. I’m going to spend today continuing to try to recover and I’m hoping that by tomorrow I’ll feel fine. But I know based on how I usually have to deal with pain that I just have to be gentle with myself and do what I need to do. But I’m optimistic that I got over this food poisoning and I’ll be myself by the end of today.

I guess I just need to be grateful that I have today off work as well and have tomorrow free in case I need that time to recover. And I’m glad I didn’t make any big plans for having so many days off because I would hate it if I had to cancel plans or feel like this on a trip. So I guess sometimes these extra days off come right when I need them.

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My Easiest Follow-Up So Far (or I Might Only Have One More Of These)

Posted on December 5, 2019 | Comments Off on My Easiest Follow-Up So Far (or I Might Only Have One More Of These)

I’ve already posted an update about my liver tumor because my doctor emailed me my MRI results. I was grateful that he emailed me because there was a bit of a delay between my MRI and my follow-up appointment. Usually, those appointments are within a week of each other, but there were some delays in getting my appointment scheduled. So having that email so I didn’t have to worry or stress for all that time was nice. But I still had my regular appointment and I knew I’d get a bit more information then.

This appointment was so easy and simple. My doctor was happy as always that the tumors are shrinking and that only one can be seen now. He has another patient with the same tumors that I do and her tumors weren’t able to shrink at all, so she had the major surgery that I was supposed to have. I know that my doctor and I said that maybe delaying the surgery as I did would allow the tumors to shrink, but it seems like I’m still an oddity with this. I’ve heard from people on social media who have these tumors as well and none of them have been able to have theirs shrink. So I continue to be grateful for the medical miracle in my liver. And I know that it still baffles my doctor that it happened and he can’t really give me an explanation of why or what I did that others didn’t.

My remaining tumor is now in a place where surgery isn’t even an option anymore. Before, we discussed that he could remove the remaining tumor if I had my gallbladder out. But now, my tumor is in the middle of my liver (instead of on the side), so it can’t really come out no matter what. This is actually a good thing because having it inside my liver makes the risk of rupture lower. But I do still have to be aware if I have sudden and severe abdominal pain because that can be a sign of rupture and that’s always going to be a risk for me.

My doctor and I discussed things that may happen in my future that can affect the tumors. Pregnancy is no longer a huge risk (but I will always be high-risk if I’m pregnant) and I probably wouldn’t need a baseline MRI if I got pregnant. Fertility medications are still risky, but my doctor thinks now that they might be an option for me depending on what medications and how long I’d be on them. I hope I won’t need to go through fertility treatments, but I’m glad it’s more of an option now than it was before. And hormone replacement therapy is still one that my doctor isn’t sure about. Because they are replacing hormones (instead of adding them), they shouldn’t be risky. But you take them long-term which is risky. He said that for now, I shouldn’t worry about it and when it gets closer to that time in my life we can reevaluate and maybe there will be more research.

My doctor and I also discussed how he already ordered a repeat MRI in a year. I was a bit confused to see that because I thought after this MRI we were going to wait 2 years. But he said that at the rate my tumors have been shrinking, in one year there may be no tumors visible. 2 out of 3 are already there, it’s just this last one that can be seen. So if there are no visible tumors in a year when I have my next MRI, that will be my last one. Even if the last tumor is still visible, as long as it doesn’t get larger it’s small enough that I don’t need to be monitored. So assuming that everything continues going the way it’s been going, my MRI next year will be the last regular one. I may get them in the future if I am pregnant, use fertility medications, or hormone replacement therapy; but I won’t need another scan unless one of those things happens.

I’m equally excited and nervous that the MRI in a year will be the last one that is scheduled. I’m excited that I don’t have to do these appointments and that it will mean that I have essentially graduated from being monitored. But I’m nervous because I still have that disconnection with my body and I’m worried I will be scared that the tumors are growing and I don’t know it. But I already have those fears even with the annual MRIs so I don’t know if it would be that bad. I know that if I’m ever really worried I could get another scan, but I’d like to be in a place where I don’t think about it. And I’m not going to worry about not having regular scans until I’m told that I won’t be getting them anymore.

The last part of my appointment was getting to see what my MRI scans looked like. This time, it wasn’t as easy as it was before to see the tumor because it’s gotten so small. But it’s still there when you know what to look for and where to look. But compared to all my other MRIs, it’s tiny and I’m still shocked how much has changed between each scan.

And when you compare the tumor from 2016 to now without seeing the progression, it’s even crazier how much it has shrunk and the difference between then and now.

After looking at the scans with my doctor, the appointment was done. My doctor said to just keep doing what I’ve been doing because clearly it is working. But there’s still no medical explanation on why they shrink when other people doing the same things that I do don’t have those results. I’m definitely lucky and I’m grateful that for some reason I’m a rare case like this. And maybe in one more year, I’ll have nothing showing up in my scans and then I can consider the miracle to be complete!

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Sorry For A Quick Post (or Going Through A Tough Day)

Posted on November 19, 2019 | Comments Off on Sorry For A Quick Post (or Going Through A Tough Day)

This isn’t going to be a big post. I knew this week would be when I’m dealing with pain and nausea, but as I’m trying to write this I’m going through an exceptionally bad day. I’m fully dosed with my medications, but they aren’t taking the edge off for me. I’m lucky that I work from home because I can’t imagine trying to get anywhere right now.

I’m dealing with my usual pain and nausea, but it’s gotten extreme this time. The pain is so bad that it’s also making me nauseous. I’ve got heat packs on me to help with the pain, but it’s just a bit unbearable right now.

I was struggling a lot on Sunday as well and the only thing that was helping me was sleeping. Even though I had a good night’s sleep, I napped for about 10 hours throughout the day. The longest stretch was a 5-hour nap. When I’m asleep, sometimes the pain and nausea wake me up, but it’s much better than when I’m awake. Sunday might have been the worst day ever, but right now it’s not that much better.

I’m lucky that as I write this on Monday, I don’t have much that I have to do. It’s my day off of work so I can just focus on taking care of myself. And that’s exactly what my plan is. I’m going to be gentle and easy on myself and just do what I need to do to make it through the day. The pain and nausea should be ending for me later this week, and I’m really hoping that this is the worst of it and things get better from now until it’s gone.

Sorry for such a short and negative post, but that’s all I really could pull together for now. But I hopefully will be back to my normal posts tomorrow.

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A Quick MRI Turnaround (or At Least I Have Some Answers)

Posted on November 13, 2019 | Comments Off on A Quick MRI Turnaround (or At Least I Have Some Answers)

I know I just wrote about getting my MRI yesterday, but the actual scan was last week on Thursday. Typically, I have my scan and then within a week, I have my followup appointment with my liver surgeon. Occasionally, I will get my MRI results sent to me a bit sooner by one of my doctors, but I don’t expect to have answers until I have my appointment.

This time, when I was scheduling my MRI, I was told my liver surgeon was on vacation for 2 weeks after my scan. So the soonest I could get my followup appointment would be the week of Thanksgiving. While I didn’t love having a big gap between the scan and the followup, I didn’t really have an option unless I wanted to do the MRI later. So I booked those appointment times and tried not to think about it too much. Even though my scans always show the tumors smaller, I do worry a bit that for some reason they will be growing again. But I know that the chances of that happening are really tiny, especially with my history.

So after my scan was done last week, I tried to not think about the results at all. I knew that it wasn’t going to be anything horrible even if I was told that they were growing again. The worst case would be that they were growing and that I would have the surgery that I had planned for originally. And I’ve already put so much thought into that surgery so I wasn’t as scared about it as I was before.

I got a notification on Monday evening that I had a message from a doctor to read. I thought maybe it was one of my other doctors seeing the MRI report and just forwarding it to me. I wasn’t expecting my liver surgeon to be sending a message since I knew he was out of the office. But that’s exactly who emailed me with a really amazing message.

I will still be going in for my appointment in about a week and a half, but it’s so good to have some information now. I can think about other things and not have moments of wondering what is going on. And honestly, these results are so much better than what I expected them to be!

I knew that 1 of the 3 tumors was already so small that they basically couldn’t be found, but it was nice to have confirmation that it still is not seen anymore. I had it in my head that maybe the last time they missed it for one reason or another. At my last scan, I knew that the medium tumor had shrunk a tiny bit, but it was still visible. Now it has disappeared like the small one did before.

But to me, the best news was about the biggest tumor. That was the one that made things so dangerous for me when it was discovered. The placement and size of it both were risky. And that has been shrinking quite a bit. The biggest change was the scan I had right before I was supposed to have surgery when it went from 10cm to 4cm. And it’s slowly been getting smaller since then. Each year it has pretty much gone down another 1cm. The milestone I knew it needed to be under was 3cm, and 1 year after we discovered the tumors it had gotten there. And it just keeps going down.

Now, my biggest tumor (which I always say was the size of a newborn’s head even if that’s overestimating it a bit), is not smaller than the smallest one was when we discovered it. It’s no longer dangerous for me to have this tumor in my body (even though that has technically been the case for a little while now). The tumor is 90% smaller than it was just 3 years ago! That’s a huge reduction.

There are still a few things I’m going to go over with my surgeon when I see him, plus I want to see pictures of the tumor now. But from his message to me, I know I have nothing to worry about. I do have some questions about what things might trigger the tumors to grow again and what monitoring I will need to do under those circumstances, but none of those things should be happening soon for me. So it’s more that I just want an idea of what I’ll need to do in the future.

I think I’ll officially believe this news when I see the images since it’s hard for me to believe that it’s really going this well for me. But I’m so grateful that my luck with my health has gotten better and that I’m able to relax about things a bit more now.

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Another Liver MRI (or Not As Routine As Always)

Posted on November 12, 2019 | Comments Off on Another Liver MRI (or Not As Routine As Always)

As I mentioned last week, I did my blood work to prep for my liver MRI. Even though I’ve only been doing liver MRIs for about 3 years, I’ve done enough of them that I’m used to the process and it doesn’t necessarily scare me anymore. There are elements of it that I don’t look forward to and am a bit fearful of, but I know that I can get through it and that I’ll be fine. I’ve learned different things I can do to help when I’m having a tough moment during the MRI and I’ve managed to be ok every time.

I know the hospital tries to keep things on schedule, but I’m aware that emergencies and other issues can come up that will push back the time of my scan. I schedule my MRIs when I have nothing else I have to get to that day so if I’m stuck there for a while it will be ok. So when I went for my scan this time, I was prepared to sit for a while and had my Kindle fully charged and loaded up with a new library book.

But there was someone in the waiting room who didn’t seem to know the common rules for waiting room etiquette. They started playing their music through their phone speakers and not using headphones. This was already starting to irritate me and I was trying to not let it affect me. I didn’t want to ask them to turn off the music because I didn’t know if anyone else in the waiting room was bothered by it. And then things got a bit more irritating when they started to sing along with their music. I was getting really close to the limit of my patience when I was called back for my MRI. I was so glad to get out of there and almost looked forward to the MRI to escape the noise in the waiting room.

When I got into the MRI room, I got changed into a gown since you can’t wear your clothes in there. They used to allow you to wear your clothes if they didn’t have metal, but the rules changed. Maybe someone claimed they weren’t wearing any metal but they had a button or something. But I don’t mind changing into the gowns. It’s not a big deal plus it gives me a chance for a good photo.

When I got onto the MRI table, the nurses got everything ready for my IV. I gave them the same warnings I give to everyone and I’m glad that it didn’t go too bad. I had a little bit of a blackout when the IV went in, but I was back to my normal self almost instantaneously. They taped down the IV tubes to get ready to have the long tubing attached and I was joking with the nurses about how I can feel when they flush it with saline and how it tastes like permanent markers smell. I think they thought that was pretty funny.

The way I am positioned for the MRIs requires me to have my arms above my head. In the hand that is on the arm with the IV, I have the tubing for the IV around my fingers since they have to go toward the other side of the room. And in my hand on the other side, I have the panic button in case something happens when I’m inside. I’ve never used the panic button, but I appreciate it. Everything was set the way it needed to be and they moved the table into the machine to get the scans started.

But as soon as I got into the machine, I noticed two things. First, my nose started itching like crazy and I couldn’t do anything about it. I really wanted to scratch, but there was no way to bring my hands to my face. So I just had to suck it up and try to ignore it. And the other thing I noticed was the IV in my arm was hurting me. It’s a hard type of pain to explain, but in my head, it felt like the needle was moving and wasn’t in the right spot. I know it didn’t move, but it was pinching and irritating my arm. I didn’t want to press the panic button for either issue because I knew I could tolerate it and I didn’t want to delay the MRI.

The first part of the scan is without the contrast dye. You listen to the prompts from the MRI machine and it tells you when to hold your breath or when you can breathe normally. When you have to hold your breath, it’s usually between 15-25 seconds. And I have to say that 25 seconds feels like forever and I’m always trying to find a way to make the time go by faster. I usually try to count the seconds in my head or count each of the noises the machine makes. I can’t always make it for 25 seconds, but I’ve gotten better each time I have to do it.

Before they remotely injected the contrast dye, there was a moment that I almost had a panic attack. Maybe I don’t remember the past MRIs properly, but I don’t remember the other scans having a long break randomly in the middle. So when things stopped this time, I thought at first that maybe it was when they were injecting the dye. But I didn’t feel the dye going into my arm and the techs hadn’t warned me that it was coming. Because of how I’m positioned in the machine, I can tilt my head far enough back that I can see the ceiling of the room behind me. I don’t know why that calms me down, but it does. I had a moment of panic that maybe there was some sort of emergency and I was stuck in the machine alone, but I tried not to think about that. And finally, the machine started making noise again so I knew everything was fine.

After the dye was injected, they pulled me out of the machine so they could remove the IV since I don’t need it for the last few scans. And when they did that, I was finally able to scratch my nose. It has never felt better to be able to scratch an itch. And I knew at that point that I only had a few more scans left and I was almost done. When those scans were done, I was pulled out of the machine so I could get dressed and head home.

When I was leaving, the techs that were in the control room area complimented me on being able to hold my breath as long as I did and for being really still. I guess all the images came out really clear, but I don’t think any of my past ones were really bad. I just know of one image once that had to be redone because I shifted in the middle of it. But normally I think they are fine.

And when I was walking past the waiting room (because you have to pass it to leave), that one person in the waiting room still had their music going and they were singing along! I feel so bad for anyone in the waiting room that wasn’t ok with the noise, but I also feel so grateful that I didn’t have to deal with it for too long.

I won’t see my liver surgeon for about 2 weeks, so I won’t have an official update until then. But I have no reason to think that my tumors aren’t continuing to shrink and that I’ll get a good report and update.

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