Tag Archives: health issues

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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Default ThumbnailA Boring Tumor Check In (or Still A Miracle) Default ThumbnailBack To Focusing On Health (or Back To Back Doctor Appointments) Default ThumbnailTumor Updates (or I’ve Got A Plan For My Liver) Default ThumbnailTumor Update Time! (or Guess I Won’t Have Another Of These For A While) Default ThumbnailI’ve Got Some Follow Through (or I Said I’d Do It So I Did) Default ThumbnailTime For Some Refocusing (or I Need To Do Some Follow Through)

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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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Default ThumbnailJust Dragging On (or Another Apology For Another Short Post) Default ThumbnailGrateful For Quick Turnarounds (or Neutral Doesn’t Mean Bad) Default ThumbnailA Quick Post (or I Really Hope I’m Not Getting Sick) Default ThumbnailThis Is Another Quick Post (or I’m Tired, Burned Out, And Still Blogging) Default ThumbnailHappy Thanksgiving! (or Just A Quick Post) Default ThumbnailHappy Thanksgiving (or A Quick Post)

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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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Default ThumbnailA Boring Tumor Check In (or Still A Miracle) Default ThumbnailMRI Again (or Hoping For Some Answers) Default ThumbnailAnother Liver MRI (or Not As Routine As Always) Default ThumbnailMRI Time (or I Think Being Calm Is Helping) Default ThumbnailTime For Another MRI (or Still Trying To Stay Calm) Default ThumbnailGetting Ready To See My Liver Surgeon Again (or My Annual MRI)

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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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Default ThumbnailMRI Again (or Hoping For Some Answers) Default ThumbnailMRI Prep Work (or Vampire Victim and Nerves) Default ThumbnailGetting Ready To See My Liver Surgeon Again (or My Annual MRI) Default ThumbnailMRI Time (or I Think Being Calm Is Helping) Default ThumbnailTime For Another MRI (or Still Trying To Stay Calm) Default ThumbnailMeeting A Surgeon (or Working On My Liver)

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3 Years Knowing About The Tumors (or I Forgot An Anniversary)

Posted on October 25, 2019 | Comments Off on 3 Years Knowing About The Tumors (or I Forgot An Anniversary)

I am always telling my friends that I love my blog for many reasons, but one reason is that it reminds me of when things happened. I can look up a blog post and get an idea of when something happened. But I only see that when I look something up. But social media can remind people of things too when it tells you what memories come up. And the other day, the memory photo that came up was from my Disneyland outing right after I found out there was something wrong with my liver (before I knew they were tumors). So I realized that my tumor anniversary was around now.

I don’t know what date to consider my tumor anniversary because there are so many options. Is it when I was at the hospital and found out something was in my liver? Is it when I found out that I had a tumor? Is it when I found out the type of tumor it was? I honestly don’t know which day to acknowledge (similar to how my medical miracle anniversary is potentially multiple days). But I do know that about 3 years ago, I was in the middle of a crazy medical journey of discovering I had tumors and making a game plan about what to do with them.

And when I saw those first images of my biggest tumor, I was so shocked. It did mess with my head because I was having issues feeling disconnected to my body, but I tried to not think about that too much. I knew the risks I was facing with this tumor being in my body and made sure I wasn’t doing anything that added to that risk. And I looked at that first photo hundreds of times because I couldn’t believe that something that big was in my body that shouldn’t be there.

The months between discovering the tumors and discovering they shrunk were also crazy for me. I was dealing with the idea of having these tumors and making preparations to have major surgery to get rid of them. My focus was on that surgery and doing anything I could to get ready for it. When the surgery didn’t happen, that also threw me off a bit and I had to deal with those feelings.

3 years later, I still have the tumors in my liver. But they are all significantly smaller than they were when they were discovered. I will be doing my next MRI soon so we can confirm they are still shrinking. I have no reason to believe that they wouldn’t be. If they stay the same size, then I have to go over a few other options with my liver surgeon. But I don’t think surgery will really be discussed much at that appointment. I’ve already discussed when he would think surgery would be an option and it’s mainly if the tumors start growing again. And if I’m going to have gallbladder surgery (which is something I expect to have in my future), then my surgeon said we can combine the surgeries so I can have my gallbladder removed along with the largest tumor. But I’m hopeful that the tumors have continued to shrink and that will be the news I get in a month.

Like with so many things in my life, it seems like yesterday and a million years ago that I discovered I had these tumors. I’m glad that I don’t think about them all the time as I did right when I learned about them. I do think about them each day when I do some visualization, but that’s only a few seconds a day. Besides those moments, I usually don’t think about them unless I’m telling someone the crazy story of me and my tumors. And it is a fun and crazy story to share.

I’m glad I had a reminder on social media that this is about the time that I discovered the tumors. It’s nice to be able to reflect back on it and think about what has happened in the past 3 years. So much has changed in my life and there is also a lot that has stayed the same. But I think the changes outweigh any stagnation in my life and it’s nice to think about the positive improvements I’ve gone through.

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Default ThumbnailMedical Miracle Anniversary (or A Year Of My Liver Being A Badass) Default ThumbnailAnother Story About A Tumor (or I Guess I Was Misdiagnosed For Over 15 Years) Default ThumbnailSurgery Anniversary (or I Guess It’s Good I Almost Forgot) Default ThumbnailMy First 2017 Monthly Challenge (or Working On My Tumors) Default ThumbnailMy LA Anniversary! (or 13 Years Have Gone By Quickly) Default ThumbnailA Non-Surgery Anniversary (or Another Year Of Being A Medical Miracle)

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Figuring Out My Pain (or Staying Calm While Stressing Out)

Posted on October 4, 2019 | Comments Off on Figuring Out My Pain (or Staying Calm While Stressing Out)

I wrote about how I didn’t sleep much before I did the Dri-Tri and how much that affected my finish time. Not sleeping before the workout was a bad decision, but I was hoping it would just screw up my workout. I didn’t think about if it could cause any other issues. And while I don’t know if this story is really connected, I have a feeling that it is.

I know that as you get older, you deal with more random pain. I feel like I am pretty familiar with pain since I deal with it almost every day. But whenever I have new pain, I worry a lot about what happened. Especially when the pain happens to be with my back. Back pain concerns me a lot because I know that it can be connected to my hip issues. And when I was showering after the Dri-Tri, I had something happen in my back that was really concerning.

The pain started as I reached for a towel after my shower, but I know that it wasn’t due to that movement. I really do believe that it is connected to not sleeping and then doing a tough workout. I’m sure that because I was tired, I wasn’t using the best form and I probably was slouching while biking. Bad posture can cause a lot of back pain which is why I try to be very conscious of my posture, especially since I work at a computer for so many hours a day.

Once my back started hurting, it was excruciating. I was supposed to have fun that night at a party to celebrate my friends adopting their daughter. I made it to the party, said hi to my friends, and then had to leave because I was in so much pain just standing up. I hated that I couldn’t be there to celebrate with them, but I knew that I had to take care of myself and make sure I didn’t make whatever happened to my back worse.

I spent the next few days taking some painkillers, using heat and ice, and putting different topical treatments to help with the pain. And then my pain started to shift from my back to my hip. And then I started to panic.

I know that both my hips will need surgeries in the future, but I don’t want to do them anytime soon. Recovering from hip surgery wouldn’t be an easy process and I know that it can take a year or so before I could get back to where I am now. I don’t want anything that prevents me from working out, so I have been careful with my hips. But I also know that I can’t avoid all activities that are potentially bad for my hips so I do take some risks. But I was starting to think that the lack of sleep/crazy workout combination was the thing that finally did the damage to my hip that would require surgery.

Every day that went by, the pain was less in my back and more in my hip. I started to struggle with sleep because I wasn’t able to find a position that I could sleep in and wasn’t painful. I was trying to not panic too much about the pain because I know that not every hip-related pain is about my hip issues. People without the issues I have can get hip pain. It’s not easy to remember that when I’m in pain, but I tried. And it did help that the pain overall was getting better, even if it was more hip-related each day.

Right now, I’m still in pain. It’s a weird, dull pain that doesn’t feel like how I remembered my hip feeling before surgery (that pain was sharper and more like little shocks). I’m trying to remain optimistic that this pain really is just about lack of sleep and the Dri-Tri (or some other innocent reason) and not a sign that I need to have hip surgery. I’m hoping that because the pain has been getting a bit better every day, that even if I did do something to my hip, that it is just temporary. It’s hard to remember sometimes that I am allowed to have normal hip pain and not worry that it’s something serious. And this past week has really tested me in working on not panicking about that.

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Default ThumbnailSleeping Away The Day (or Sometimes The Pain and Nausea Are Just Too Bad) Default ThumbnailDealing With The Pain (or Not All Pain Is The Same) Default ThumbnailAccepting Some Help (or Hope This Helps The Pain) Default ThumbnailTrying To Go With The Flow (or Staying Calm And Remembering To Breathe) Default ThumbnailPain Distracts From Other Pain (or The Rain Isn’t Too Bad This Time) Default ThumbnailStaying Calm With Changes (or Testing My Fear Of The Dentist)

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Staying Calm With Changes (or Testing My Fear Of The Dentist)

Posted on September 27, 2019 | Comments Off on Staying Calm With Changes (or Testing My Fear Of The Dentist)

It has taken a long time, but I finally am at a point where I don’t fear the dentist as much as I used to. I still have a fear of the dentist and it makes me panic a bit, but it is nothing like what it was just a few years ago. I’ve had better appointments in the recent past which helped, but I think it is also due to something in my brain chemistry changing that has helped.

For a while, my dentist appointments have been very consistent with the care I was getting as well as the people that I saw. Then, the last time I was there, I discovered that my dentist retired and 2 new dentists took over the office. This caused me to have a bit of panic, but it ended up working out well for me. The new dentists were very understanding with my fear and they were willing to work with me and try to make things easy.

While having new dentists was a big change, since I only see the dentist every 3rd appointment, it wasn’t too bad. As long as my dental hygenist was still there, I was happy. I used to joke to her that I would switch offices if she ever left because she really does work hard to make my panic attacks as minor as possible. But she said she had no plans to leave so I didn’t worry about it.

Then this week, I went to the dentist. My appointment was on Monday and it was just going to be for a cleaning so I would see the hygienist and not the dentist. Things were running a little late, but that wasn’t a big deal. Then one of the dentists came out and said she would get to me as soon as possible. I was so confused since I wasn’t going to be seeing the dentist for a cleaning. And that’s when I discovered that the hygienist was no longer at the office. I couldn’t follow her to another office because she switched careers. I am glad she is going to do something that she has always wanted to do, but I was sad that it was another change and it was causing me to panic a bit.

I ended up having to reschedule my appointment to yesterday because of how late things were running. And while I tried not to think about things, I spent a few days panicking that things were not going to be good at my appointment. I knew the new dentists were very understanding and they said they would work with me and my fear during the cleaning, but I have gotten so used to having my routine and not needing to worry too much. I knew that there was a good chance my appointment was going to be harder than the past few cleanings, but I also knew that I would be fine and that my fear and feeling of panic wasn’t a sign of things to come.

I’m aware that I’m a bit of a pain in the butt at the dentist. It’s not easy to have a patient who is scared and it took a long time to get comfortable with the hygienist who I had been seeing. Fortunately, things went much better than I expected.

I discussed with the dentist about how things had been done in the past to help my fear. And she did explain why those might not have been the best choices. I was willing to take a chance and try her plan, but I asked her to modify a few things. For example, I wanted her to confirm that my teeth were fine and there was nothing she saw that looked concerning. I don’t think that’s a normal part of the cleaning, but I really needed to hear that in order to feel better. And once that part was done, things were easier on me.

The only hard part was not knowing how much longer I had in the appointment since things were being done in a different order. Thankfully, the dentist was very understanding and answered all my questions and explained where we were in the appointment at each step. I kept apologizing for asking a million things, but I don’t think she minded. She was saying that it’s better that I’m aware of what’s going on and making sure I take care of my teeth instead of letting my fear take over and keep me away.

The appointment was a bit longer than I’m used to, but I think that was because the dentist and I had to work together to figure out how to make the appointment the best for me. But in the end, it all worked out for me and I didn’t have any panic attacks while there. My nerves were still affecting me, but that’s something that I don’t think will ever go away. And hopefully, when I go back in 4 months it will get a little easier for me.

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Another Annual Appointment (or At Least I’m Getting Used To These)

Posted on September 20, 2019 | Comments Off on Another Annual Appointment (or At Least I’m Getting Used To These)

I’ve written about having to get mammograms before on here. I’ve been doing them for several years now and it has become routine. There is a bit of debate with my doctor if I do really need to do them each year, but if they are questioning it I’m fine with doing them. Fortunately, they are free so I don’t have to worry about paying for them. And I know that there is a higher risk of getting a false positive with doing them when I might need them, but that’s a better option than not catching something.

But I’m also not expecting to get bad results from them. If my mom’s cancer is genetic (which is still a possibility), the type of breast cancer she had is not caught on mammograms. It also would likely be post-menopausal so I am not in the phase of life that it’s a higher possibility. But I know that my insurance doesn’t really see that information and just that I have a mother who had breast cancer.

I wasn’t sure if anything would be different this time since it would be my first mammogram since I was considered high risk for breast cancer. But I was prepared for some changes and went into the appointment curious to see what would happen.

As usual, I had to wait a bit for my turn, but it wasn’t too bad of a wait. And then I was faced with the infamous mammogram machine.

The only differences I noticed this time at my appointment were some of the questions they asked before they started. They wanted to have some more information on my mom’s cancer and when she was diagnosed. All easy things for me to answer since I have had to share that information a few times lately. They also wanted to clarify all the cancer screenings I have done before and wanted to know if I’d be doing an MRI this year too. Even though I have been approved for annual MRIs, I don’t plan on doing them that often unless something changes and my doctor or the geneticist recommends that.

After the questions, it was time to get this done. I don’t think anyone really likes getting mammograms, but they aren’t the worst either. I think some of the pain I experience is more the anticipation of pain and not actual pain. It’s not painless, but I would describe it as more uncomfortable than anything. I experience a bit more pain than other people I know because I bruise easily, but that’s just a me problem.

And while I haven’t had a bad technician do my mammograms before, I have to say the woman who did my mammogram this time was extra awesome. She understood how uncomfortable this is and really tried to make it easier for me. When something didn’t feel right or the machine was pinching me, we worked together to try to place everything in a different way so it wouldn’t hurt. And once we got everything right, she ran to press the button so it would release quickly. I really appreciated her wanting to make this easier on me and taking the time and extra steps that she did.

There have been times where the images weren’t clear enough and they had to do them again, but this time all 4 images came out perfect the first time they took them. So it was easy and quick and I was out of there in no time.

I was told all the standard things like how it can take a few weeks to get the results back, but I’m not worried about it at all. These screenings are just preventative and what I do as an extra precaution and not because I’m worried they will find something. And if they did contact me saying there was something suspicious, I know that there are lots of things that can look odd that have nothing to do with breast cancer. So I’m not too concerned about how long the results will take or what they will say.

I know the first time I had a mammogram, it was so much more stressful waiting on the results and making sure I was fine. I had a similar feeling when I did the MRI the first time. But now, at least mammograms are feeling normal and routine and I don’t worry about them. Just like I don’t worry about what my cholesterol or other annual blood tests say. I’m glad that these are becoming less stressful since they will be something I have to do for a long time. I don’t know if I will be getting another mammogram next year, but at least it’s good to know that if I do have to do it in another year that they seem to be getting easier.

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Another Quick Therapy Appointment (or Video Appointments Make Things Easy)

Posted on September 12, 2019 | Comments Off on Another Quick Therapy Appointment (or Video Appointments Make Things Easy)

When I had my last therapy appointment, I was put on a new medication that would hopefully help me with recovering from my eating disorder. The plan was that I would try the medication for 6 weeks with increasing the dose each week and then I would have an appointment with my therapist to discuss how things were going and see if the dosage was correct.

But things didn’t turn out that way. I tried the medication for about a month before the side effects just became too much for me to handle. I really was hoping I could keep going, but it was affecting my life too much and the benefits weren’t worth it. I emailed my therapist to let her know I wanted to stop the medication and we worked out a plan for me to ease off of it. I’ve been lucky and the side effects I was experiencing went away very quickly. I haven’t been dealing with vertigo or numbness for a while now. And I don’t know if my period is going to be affected again this cycle, but at least it should be normal again soon.

Even though I stopped the medication already, I kept my appointment with my therapist. I figured that it would be good to keep it in case she wanted to talk to me more about stopping the medication and see if I was ok. And since it was a video appointment, it was easy to keep it and not have to worry about if the appointment wouldn’t be worth my time. I figured it would end up being a fast check-in and I was doing work at home while I was waiting for my therapist to get online.

And as expected, it was a quick check-in. She wanted to confirm that I was off the medication and that I was doing better. I think she was relieved that most of the side effects went away almost immediately. Unfortunately, the medication is very strong and a lot of people have reactions like I did. But it was worth trying it to see if it would help. We had no way to know how I would react until I tried, and now we do. And it did make me feel a bit better to find out that so many people have side effects. Even though I don’t feel like a failure for having them, I still felt better knowing that it was so common and not one of my medical weirdo moments.

Going over the medication was the main reason for the appointment, and we didn’t have much to discuss since I was off of it. She did want to check in with me to make sure that I’m doing ok emotionally and with everything else, and I was honest that I’ve been exhausted and dealing with a lot lately. But nothing that seems unmanageable or that I needed extra help with. It’s mainly something for me to be aware of and make sure that I take care of myself. I think my therapist was understanding with everything going on in my life and she was ok with me having a few extra things to deal with as long as I was handling them.

The last thing we went over was how I’m doing on Vyvanse. I know that she typically doesn’t prescribe it to patients and she’s following the protocol that my last therapist had. But I appreciate that she understands why I’m on it and wants to make sure that we don’t have to adjust anything. She did mention that we could increase my dosage, but I don’t want to do that right now. I feel like it’s a good amount for me and I do feel it helps. And I don’t want to increase until I feel like I do need more to get the help that I’m used to.

And that was pretty much it for my therapy check-in. We did set up my next appointment for 6 months from now and it will be another video appointment. Because my appointments are mainly medication check-ins, I don’t have to go as often as I used to. And every 6 months is pretty standard now for making sure I’m still doing ok and I don’t need anything to change. And of course, if something changes in my life and I need to go in sooner, I know I can make another appointment and go in person. But for now, I continue to be grateful for video appointments because they are so easy for me to do. And considering this appointment ended up only being about 5 minutes, it was nice to not have to drive 30 minutes there and back to do it.

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Some Random Medical Tests (or At Least Getting Blood Work Was Entertaining)

Posted on September 10, 2019 | Comments Off on Some Random Medical Tests (or At Least Getting Blood Work Was Entertaining)

Something I didn’t post about when it happened was having some extra medical tests done recently. It wasn’t anything urgent or needed, but I like to try to get as much done at one time as possible. And I knew that I would have blood work done after my annual appointment. So I figured that would be the perfect time to ask about doing a few other medical tests that I had been curious about.

Even though I don’t want to have kids right now, I’m aware of the biological limits of my body. And I don’t know if people are more open about infertility or there is more infertility out there now (I honestly feel that it is a mix of both), but I have dozens of friends who are struggling to get pregnant. Some of them are due to age, but some are because they didn’t know that they were in pre-menopause early or they had another fertility issue going on. And many of those friends have been telling everyone they know to try to test your fertility just to see if there is an issue you can be aware of before you spend money on fertility treatments that might not work.

For me, fertility treatments might not be an option because of my liver tumors. And even though being pregnant is a higher risk for me, my tumors are small enough that it wouldn’t be life-threatening. So if I get pregnant in the future, that is fine. But since fertility treatments aren’t necessarily an option for me, I know being aware of my fertility and what the realities are of my body is a good thing. So when I was at my annual appointment, I asked about some of the tests that my friends said they wished they had done sooner. Some of them aren’t really a good option for me right now (I could be fine now and in a month things would be different so the results don’t matter), but there were 2 tests we could add to my blood work that would at least give me a baseline idea of where my fertility is right now.

Because I was doing some fertility testing with my blood work, I couldn’t just do my blood work that day like I normally do. You have to do the tests on the 3rd day of your period. Of course, my period was late and I had to wait even longer, but I finally was able to do the tests 2 weeks ago.

The blood draw lab was being remodeled so it was temporarily in a weird place in the hospital. And they had fewer stations than normal so things were getting backed up. And because I hate needles and I already have issues with nausea during my period, I was pretty miserable while I was waiting. The staff noticed how sick I was looking (nausea makes me break out in a sweat and I guess my coloring was super pale), so they started to worry about me. I tried to tell them that I was fine and sadly this was normal, but I don’t know if they believed me. They kept giving me weird looks as I was waiting.

Finally, it was my turn for blood and I was really worried about how it would go. I was feeling light-headed and weird and I didn’t know what was causing it. I have been doing much better with needles lately so I was trying to tell myself that it had nothing to do with the blood. But I still let the nurse doing the blood draw know about all my issues so I didn’t scare them if I passed out. And I mentioned that I was dealing with some hormonal pain and nausea so that wasn’t a shock if I mentioned it after the blood work.

I guess I didn’t think about how it would sound when I said I was dealing with nausea because they started to worry that I had the flu, measles, or some other disease. They started to ask me about what immunizations I’ve had and if I had been exposed to anyone sick recently. I kept saying that this is normal for me during my period and explained I had to do day 3 blood work. Finally, they relaxed a bit but I could tell they were still a bit suspicious about what was making me sick. And when the blood was done (I didn’t faint which made me happy), they asked me how I was feeling and I just said the same as before so they wouldn’t worry. The nausea was awful while I was there and I was terrified I could need to throw up during the blood draw. I’m so glad that didn’t end up happening.

It took a bit of time to get the blood work back (I was warned it isn’t as fast as the normal blood tests I had to do), but I did get my results back last week. And everything with me is in the normal range. There is one fertility test where I am on the lower end of normal, but that’s actually normal for my age. If I was trying to get pregnant now, I should be fine. And I know that this can change rapidly because of my age, but it still was good to know a baseline for now.

And the fact that things can change quickly for me is something my doctor brought up when she gave me the results. But she understood I was doing the tests more to see if anything was really abnormal and that it’s good that everything is in the normal range. I’m trying not to keep my age and fertility in my head too much because I can’t do anything to change my situation. And I’m not going to date or marry someone that I don’t feel right about just so I can have a biological kid. I have to just hope that I will meet someone and my tests will still all be in the normal range. But for now, I’m just glad that there isn’t anything I should be worried about.

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