Not Cancer

Those are the words I heard from a specialist who finally gave me some solid good news that is such a relief.

This past year had been a series of Doctor visits and a lot of people couching their words so I felt even more in limbo than I did before I walked into their office.

It started with having a hard time catching my breath after carrying a laundry basket from the second floor of our home to the basement where the laundry is. If my head got below my heart for periods of time that seemed to be progressively shorter as time went on, I would be short of breath. This can be very scary.

So I went to my doctor who started a series of tests and sent me to a cardiologist for high blood pressure and something that she heard when she was listening to my heart that had her concerned.

That was a saga in itself. They found a shadow that they thought was possibly my heart not pumping blood correctly. They did a number of other tests including introducing a radioactive dye into my circulatory system and then had to give me a card to give to the TSA since I was flying the next day and still within the half life that might set off the detectors. This all ended in a cardiac catheterization which showed that I have a slow aortic valve leak that most of the population of the planet had and won’t become a problem until I am much older. But the heard was healthy so that was good.

I was told to avoid or reduce stress to help my blood pressure. We got a good giggle over that one.

So one organ down.

I had my mammogram for the first time in about 5 years. There was something that they needed to take a closer look at. Remember I am supposes to reduce stress. That sort of news never reduces stress. I did all the tests and scans that they wanted me to do and it came down to dense tissue creating the shadow. So that did reduce stress.

I have been also having pain in my gut along with some other symptoms. The test for that was drinking barium and getting a CAT scan of my abdomen. My doctor learned something that I have known for years. I have a fatty liver due to chemical usage when I was young. (Safety note: ALWAYS WEAR GLOVES WHEN YOU ARE PLAYING WITH CHEMICALS THAT WILL CAUSE YOU DAMAGE DOWN THE ROAD LIKE ACETATE. They can be absorbed through the skin and then live in your liver forever.) No new there for me.

Then my blood tests came back a little screwy and in the CAT scan there was evidence that my lymph nodes where inflamed which can happen during an infection in the body or can happen for other bad reasons.

Off to an oncologist I was sent to sort out what was going on. I was fortunate to get a rather no bones doctor who didn’t mince words and gave me her opinion without sugar coating it. I liked that. I knew where I stood and what I had to do. She did agree that the lymph nodes did look inflamed so she wanted me to wait three weeks and then get another scan but include the chest in the scan so she could see other lymph nodes in my body. It would put the scans about two months apart.

I had to drink that barium again. I hate drinking barium.

Scan was done and I waiting for the results.

Went to see my regular doctor for a follow up and she said I needed to make an appointment with the oncologist because of a thickening of the lung and was seemed to be a mass in my upper right lung.

I made an appointment with the oncologist and got the follow up scans done before I went so she would have the additional information she needed.

Then came the waiting period until the appointment when all the ‘what ifs’ run through your head. So much for reducing stress in my life.

Yesterday I sat down with her and we went over all the results. The mass turned out to be yet another shadow that my body seems to like to create for no reason internally. The thickening of the lung probably came down to not wearing a respirator when I was young and I really should have done so (Safety Note: WEAR A RESPERATOR WHEN WORKING WITH MATERIALS THAT CREATE PARTICULATE MATTER. THAT STUFF GETS IN THE LUNGS AND CAUSE PROBLEMS DOWN THE ROAD. You are not as invincible as you think.)

She said, “It’s not cancer and I hope I never see you again.” Which is probably the nicest thing she could have said to me really.

So the scarring in the lungs was the reason behind all my problems with breathing. It explains a lot that has been going on.

Again I have another life annoying rather than life threating problem to deal with which is really the better of the two.

It finally has come down to what I figured when this whole thing started. Lose 30 pounds and increase your endurance through exercise and diet.

The only other thing that did come out of this was finding out how much more my spine is screwed up by arthritis along with the beginnings of other parts of my body showing signs of arthritis. I know how to deal with this. It does mean that I have managed to keep my core in good shape and now I need to focus on that and the other areas were I will have issues down the road.

So that’s the prescription for my current set of problems. Exercise and lose 30 pounds.

But hearing ‘not cancer’ was such a relief.

I no longer have this shadow hovering over me, which is a great stress reducer.

I am grateful that I know what the heck is going on within me in excruciating detail.