3 month scan…Mayo

Thanks Marion…It’s taken me a couple days….but the tearfulness seems to be subsiding….and I’m truly feeling happier. I’m not quite celebrating….but I’ll get there. I know I have a reason to celebrate right now. The holidays will be a bit brighter this year. ))))

Julie

Melinda B…..Thank you…..I am already looking forward to the next month with happy anticipation instead of dread. As for the singing of Silent Night…..as soon as I started to sing….I thought to myself, “What WAS I thinking?” I suddenly realized that there was a good chance I’d start crying, but made it through the first verse…and then, to my surprise, I found myself singing the third verse…and I wasn’t sure I could remember all the lyrics. …But…I did. I almost found myself singing another Christmas song, but left before I found myself deep in hot water. )) I”m so glad I sang Silent Night though.

Melinda A….Thank you for the offer to ask some questions for me at your next appointment. I don’t know if I have any “burning” questions….)))….but I’ll go back over my notes to see what my questions were. I think it mainly had to do with the 3 vs 6 months spans between CT scans….and if the 3 month scans really increased risk a “lot” to warrant spreading it out to 6 months. As you said….your husband’s labs were normal….and so were mine…so there’s not much to be gained from watching those for a sign of recurrence. The other issue I can remember was, why not do an MRI (which eliminates the radiation problem) followed by a CT three months later, followed by an MRI again three months after that…leapfrogging, so to speak? Is there some negative to doing that? In my mind….it would keep the every 6 month schedule for the CT Scan….but give some interior view of what might be going on half way through. Insurance “might’ balk at it…but then again….at a certain point, for me, it is peace of mind…and I’d used savings to pay for an additional test for a year or two. Am I being totally paranoid here?
Also,…thanks for the info on your husband concerning the creatinine/kidney function tests. I wasn’t dehydrated….but then again, I have since discovered that caffeine is tough on the kidneys (they didn’t want me to have any caffeine for 24 hours after the CT scan with contrast) . I “thought” ,mistakenly, that my Coke Zero was also caffeine free, but just discovered it is not. So, I will find something else to quench my thirst for fizzy drinks….and drink more water….and hopefully, get the creatinine back down some. I went back over old blood tests that were done when I went for surgery….and my creatinine at that time was 0.8. That was higher than it used to be…but I’d be very happy to have that back. ))

Lainy….I really expected to hear bad new…..and am so grateful that I was wrong. I need to listen to you more in the future…but scanxiety really took over this time.

Duke….Blessed indeed…and I know it. And, it isn’t the first time that I have defied the odds. I had a heart attack in 2002 of a type that usually kills before you get to the hospital. I decided then that God had more work for me to do.

Then I beat the odds on blood clots to my lungs from a DVT that hit during my first chemo. I walked around for a week thinking that the shortness of breath was side effects of the chemo. My GP had one of “those talks” with my husband and me while I was still in the hospital, one that she said she hated to do, but I needed to know that I could still die from this.

Back in 1979, I had a large (volleyball ) size tumor that caused a premature birth of our first son (he died two days later). Local doctors only offered me a possible surgery with a surgeon they knew…but it would take 6 months for an appointment. I found out about a surgeon at Mayo who was at the time the best gynecological surgeon in the world, set up an appointment and 6 weeks later, he operated, but first checked for a cancer for which I had symptoms..(negative) and then when the pathology came back, the tumor had undergone gangrene after being twisted and losing its blood supply. We went on to have another son, but if our first son had been born by c-section, which should have happened, he may still have died, and we would never have had our 2nd son, because the ob said that he would have followed the birth by a hysterectomy.

Blessed…you bet….a lot of heartache….misery….but I’ve always come out on the other side and each time I’ve felt that it was because God had more plans for me. Looking back, I can see when and how I was needed and what His plan was. I feel that the blood clots were a knock on the side of the head…God telling me that there’s a plan here….look for it. I just haven’t figured out what it is yet though.

Meanwhile, I forgot to share one thing……today, when my husband took me shopping (I rode in a wheel chair due to a pinched leg nerve) ….we went by a lone man ringing a Salvation Army bell. I noticed no one was putting anything in his bucket. I asked my husband to turn me around and go back….whereupon I asked the man if I could sit beside him and sing a Christmas carol. I sang Silent Night and after a few surprised looks on diners faces around us, I noticed a few smiles appear, and suddenly we had several people come forward and put money into his bucket. It was totally spontaneous, but a wonderful feeling. It isn’t the first time I’ve sung by the Salvation Army bucket, but this year and this time, it had a lot more of “me” in it.

Julie T.