The Anxiety Olympics Arena Is Temporarily Closed for Cleaning

Last week was, well, hellish. I did my best to keep busy...we even had family pictures taken on Thursday morning:

See? Tranquilizer darts DO work!

And then came Thursday night and that meant I wasn't going to get much sleep. Not only because of the anxiety but because of the prednisone. See, way back a long time ago (um, last spring), the first time I had a high-contrast CT scan, I developed a mild rash a few days later. And so now all of my files have big ALLERGY ALERT stickers all over them, and any time I have to get a high-contrast scan, I have to take 10 tablets of steroids within the 24 before treatment and then, just for good measure, I chase that cocktail with a couple of Benadryl an hour before the scan. It's super fun. I'm jittery as hell and then suddenly sleepy (if they give me the injectable Benadryl, then I'm REALLY the life of the party). If these scans were just once a year or whatever, I probably wouldn't mind as much. But by my reckoning, I've had about 10 of these scans in the last 18 months, and another 9 or 10 without the contrast dye. And then there are the PET scans. This is why my skin is always glowing. 

But enough about me. Let's talk about me! My scan on Friday happened right on time, and since I'm extremely neurotic and have zero patience, I insist on seeing the doctor the very same day as the scan. This is hard on the doctor, who has appointments all day long, and so it's difficult for him to find time to look at the scans - and it's hard on the radiologists, too, who have to hurry up and look at the scans as well, but you know what? It's REALLY hard on me, too, and I'm the patient, so I pull my crazy patient card and the amazing staff at UCH makes it happen for me. Thank you, Wells. What this means, though, is that we usually have to wait a while to see the doctor. This time, he was about an hour and 15 minutes late. Which was fine, except that they sent in a resident or something at first, who clearly had no idea about me or my case (Him, fumbling around with the computer, "So, it says here that you take blood thinner? Do you know why?" Me, drily: "Well, it probably has to do with the fact that your surgical team stapled shut my IVC last year during surgery and gave me a massive blood clot in the process." Him. "Hm...Okay. Is there anything you want to talk with the doctor about today?" Me: "JUST THE SCAN." Have I mentioned that my husband limits me to a single cup of coffee on scan days?), so that annoyed me. But he slunk out after a few minutes and all was quiet again, except for my phone, which kept buzzing with text messages.

Then Wells finally arrived and gave us the mostly good news: no new lesions on my liver, no new areas of concern, and the SBRT treated lesions looked just right. There is a tiny, possibly new lesion on my left lung, but it might have been there for a while and I just hadn't breathed deeply enough before. So I have to go back in a month and have a chest CT to check that baby out. My next full, high-contrast scan isn't for three months! Yaaay! 

I was so relieved that I didn't really believe Wells when he told me all of this, and kept asking, "Are you sure there's nothing new on my liver? You looked really closely? And no new lesions popped up in any new spots?" And he, kind man that he is, kept telling me yes, he was sure, and although the official report wasn't finished, no one had seen anything new aside from the tiny lung spot. (And lung spots are usually very slow growing and well contained, which is why I'm not super freaked about this development.) So, champagne all around and a good night was had by all!

Now that I've had a few days for the news to sink in, I have a couple of things I'm kicking around and will share with you soon about how I plan to optimize my mostly healthy status. This is, unequivocally, the healthiest I have been since my original diagnosis a year and a half ago. I can't wait to feel even better going forward.