This waiting game is no fun. I want off this train. For the last few days, I wince and brace myself when I cough because it’s blood. Thankfully, it’s mostly in the morning and discreet, so the rest of the day I don’t have to hack on some unsuspecting person.
In one doctor’s visit this week, I have been poked and prodded: blood taken, urine sample, steroid shots, chest x-ray, and an EKG. Then I’m sent immediately to an imaging center and they take a CT scan of my lungs without contrast and with contrast. The technician is nothing but cheerful and pleasant during the relatively fast procedure. If anyone has had a HIDA scan done (from the years of my gallbladder woes), this definitely seemed quick by comparison. The one caveat is that the contrast made me feel flushed from head to toe and like I was peeing in my pants. “No one has peed on this table during this test,” the technician assures me.
Back at the doctor’s office, with the results sent over, the doctor begins with: “I really hate this part of my job.”
I would like to say one thing before continuing: no good has come from such a disclaimer. Advertisements might have suckered me in the past to seeing bad movies or buying useless products. Cliffhangers for television might have been born out of such carefully scripted lines, but realistically, no good can come from an opening like that.
The doctor hands me the report of the CT scan and it’s filled with medical terms I know I’ll have to look up later. Some things stick out like: “large mediastinal mass” and “suspicious for lymphoma and thymoma” and “left pleural effusion” and “atelectasis”. Basically, what I find out is that I have an apple-sized “soft tissue” mass within my left lung. I have a chronic cough due to it pushing on my esophagus and my heart. And they don’t know what it is.
Now before it seems inevitable I would like nothing more than to jump off a cliff mentally when I’m receiving this news, I find myself reconstructing my fatigue and my little aches and pains within the past months that I had figured amounted to nothing. The lesson learned here is that: don’t be a hypochondriac, but if something doesn’t feel right, figure out what’s wrong. I, perhaps, in my busy work and school life, neglected to think of something important: myself.
Finally, for the important information: I have a biopsy consultation scheduled for the middle of the upcoming week. I’m trying to maintain a sense of normalcy and fighting back the urge to panic (cliff, anyone?) in the next few days. If, indeed, a biopsy is needed, the 12-year old boy in me thinks: they’re going to stick a needle in my chest? Cool! Though the adult in me is scared shitless and grateful I won’t be awake during such a procedure.
This blog post is not intended to allow myself to wallow in self-pity. It’s intended to get some things off my chest (see? I still have a cheap sense of humor through all this) and give myself some time to reflect as I wait.
Anyone who has sat in a waiting room understands this: waiting sucks. Mentally, I’m preparing myself to receive the wide spectrum of results and opinions.
And so, I sit and wait.
To be continued…
Just remember, Mass, Volume, and Gravity are all different things!
ReplyDeleteYikes! My dad had a soft tissue mass in his lung a few years ago. He's fine now, though. But you're right, the waiting sucks.
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