Thursday, September 26, 2013

Little break

I think I might take a little break from writing, a conscious decision. Thinking about all of this is causing me to feel really scared and anxious and honestly, I just can't stand feeling that way.

Here are the changes to date:

I'm starting to be pretty convinced after all these blood tests and whatnot that maybe thyroid cancer isn't my problem, and this other L word is. Oof. I just said it. Kind of lead-balloon feeling right now.

Signs of lymphoma are night chills and sweats, enlarged lymph nodes in the head and neck, rubbery/firm enlarged lymph nodes, fatigue, and some other things. They're sort of amorphous enough to be attributed to many things. This word keeps popping up though, and I know that Dr. B. is thinking in that direction as we proceed with testing. So it's on the table, in a way. No, not in a way. It's on the table.

I have an ultrasound scheduled on the 4th and I was sitting in the bath tub last night thinking how dumb it is that I would miss the opportunity to have a biopsy. I'll be in Seattle at the one place where this ultrasound is done, and if I don't have a biopsy at that time, I'll just have to come back later to do it. I summoned my courage and emailed my endocrinologist (Dr. K) and asked her to please make sure that the biopsy is ordered. She replied supportively and said that she changed the order and that if they felt at the time it was needed, we'd go for it. This causes me to feel relieved and doubly scared. If someone says, "We need to do a biopsy", that means something's wrong. I'm going to be a wreck next Friday.

On October  7th I'll speak by phone with my endo and we'll discuss my ultrasound and my blood test results and get everything put into context. I'm asking Dr. B. to correspond with Dr. K. so that we're not doubling efforts for no reason, and we're not missing anything that falls in between both their care of me.

I'm shaking just writing this post. I woke up this morning at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep for two hours, because once my brain remembers that this is all happening, I get scared. I spend a lot of time just breathing, wiggling my toes and remembering that waiting is the hard part, and that I can just stay busy until next Friday. It seems an eternity away.

After the ultrasound I have the phone consult with my endo, and will set one up with Dr. B. We will at that time set up the x-rays of my abdomen I'm assuming to check for organ enlargement that generally comes with lymphoma. Fuckballs. So... yeah. This is my world right now. Doing my best to just keep distracted because when I'm not thinking about all of this, I'm actually pretty damned happy. Things are going really well right now and I'm set on enjoying it. But sometimes.. it's just all too much.

So maybe I'll not write for a bit, and give myself a break. I don't know. I canceled my therapy appointment for financial reasons, but I'm also dreading seeing her and potentially talking about this because in some way it will make it land and become real. I'm keeping the terror at bay so far, I'm just scared, and that is bad enough.

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