This has been a tough stretch. What seemed like nothing has now become this big anxiety producing machine. To try to sum up, I had scans…first doctor was not concerned. Went to second doctor, he missed my appointment, but saw something in the scan he was concerned about and wanted more scans. That basically ate up my entire week last week, and now I haven’t heard anything from them. My scans were Thursday night and Friday afternoon. There was a note about conern over a lymph node, but now it’s been 5 days of nothing. I’m getting very anxious. … OK. here goes the story.
Scan.
Scans are just a part of the whole cancer thing. You get them schedjuled, and you worry, and you lay in the little tube and you worry, and then you wait for results, and you worry. The entire process is just kinda rough. So I had a scan back a few weeks ago that my team at St. Paul Regions was generally not concerned with.
Summary
Having cancer means you need to get scans and they make you emotional)
Appointment at Mayo
A few weeks later, I had two appointments at Mayo; one to meet with my surgeon and another to meet with the doctor who made my little set of temporary teeth. I waited for the surgeon for 45 minutes before they called me back. Eventually they just said he was too busy to see me. OK. So then I went downstairs to my other appointment, and that doctor had already left for lunch. So basically a big nothing trip to Rochester. Another day of not working, all that stuff. It’s frustrating. I was also already upset because it was clear that beyond being late / not showing up… there was little to no preparation done for my appointment. The nurse came in and started going through my file and… I don’t know. It’s just frustrating to feel like no one is doing anything.
Summary
Doctors are busy and are also dicks about it
Afterwords
So then i finally hear from my surgeon, he took the time to look at the scan and determined that they wanted another set of scans. This time we would do an MRI and PET scan. OK. So a few problems here.
- Why didn’t my Doc in St. Paul seem concerned like… at all and now Mayo wants to do more scans? Why is this so different? Is someone right or wrong? Confusion and uncertainty.
- If the scan showed a problem, gosh that would have been great if you already looked at it and then we could have talked about it. But instead this is all happening over email.
- The scans would be on Thursday night and Friday afternoon. They couldn’t get them both on the same day. OK, but I also already had appointments on Monday, group on Tuesday, and then I had Therapy on Wednesday, and an appointment I had scheduled for pain management that I’d been waiting for for months on Thursday. So, seven appointments in one week. Work is going…. Not well.
Summary
They wanted more scans which isa major disturbance to my day to day life and also mental health
OK Lay Still
So Then I go and do the scans. Not a huge deal, well, on Thursday I unfortunately sort of lost consciousness for a second when they were putting a needle in my arm. That wouldn’t have been a huge deal, but because of all the appointments and just… brain fog in general I woke up and literally had NO idea where I was or why I was there. I didn’t know why there were two people looking at me. I didn’t know why I was in a tiny little room. It was as scared as I’ve been in a long time. Eventually I got the scans done, they took the needle out and I got to go home.
Summary
passed out from needle and was confused to the point of being scared. that sucked.
The Weight of the Wait
Now I have heard very little. On Friday they put some notes up but they are very much in medical mumbo jumbo and very hard to understand. Other than that, nothing. So the scans that we needed to do, and do pretty quickly… I don’t know. I don’t know when it’s fair or reasonable for me to start getting upset. I mean. I have BEEN upset for quite a while now… but like… for this particular thing.
They are saying that a lymph node looks enlarged. They might want to do a biopsy on it. They used the phrase “needle biopsy” which for some reason sounds worse than being cut open. I know that another biopsy will bring more anxious feelings and more waiting. But hopefully it will give us some guidance and information as well.
Summary
I am an emotional mess who is getting very anxious waiting for results
So how’s it all going? IDK. I have my moments. I am trying really hard to just stay positive, but it’s not easy. I go from “hey this will be OK” to wondering how long my life insurance policy will last my kids.
Cancer sucks. So does having cancer while trying to run your own business. That part is just brutal. Today I was going to try to put in my teeth and make some phone calls, and I did, but it just hurt so bad I had to stop. Maybe tomorrow. Hell, maybe later today. I just… blah.
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