When you have had a “big scare” health wise you realize that the “little scares” aren’t always worth mentioning. When I was going through treatment for Hodgkins Lymphoma I had THE BEST support system thanks to our social media. Between my carepages blog and facebook, people stayed informed and in contact with me while I was battling for my life. I firmly believe that all the prayers and positive messages played a huge role in my recovery and success! It was so amazing. But I recently went through a little scare that I decided to keep quiet…I didn’t want to get anyone panicked…but now I can share!
An awesome Zumba friend of mine, Jennifer Petrick Tweedlie, was recently diagnosed with stage 2 melanoma (and she recently underwent a 2nd surgery to remove lymphnodes, my prayers and positive thoughts are with you Jen!). That type of cancer my friends, scares the HELL out of me. I never realized just how deadly it was until watching the ShowTime series The Big C. Anyway…her diagnosis lite a fuse in my brain that I needed to get a dermatology check-up. Then going from doctor to doctor (general physician to my oncologist) I made it into seeing my dermatologist (the wait to get in w/ that department is absolute craziness with Kaiser) But I stood butt naked, with my gown in my hand while my female doctor looked over my body, head to toe!! I don’t know if I’ve done many other things THAT humiliating before but man on man! haha I stood there…closed my eyes…God forbid I actually look down and see my freckly, furry, fat body under those horrendous lights in doctors exam room…instead I closed my eyes nice and tight and imagined “my body” hahaha. Much more bearable that way! She kept mentioning a mole on my tummy. Right by my belly-button, which was the one that caused the concern for me to actually go in and see her. If you have a freckily body you know that you must watch for the A, B, C, D’s of mole and freckles on your body
A = Asymmetrical B = Borders C = Color D = Dimension.
Dr. Chang said that particular spot violated A, B & C.
This is the mole….and this is where it was located on my tummy.
Dr. Chang said her schedule was pretty booked and she wanted it removed STAT. So I had a surgical appt a week later. hmm….that kinda made me worry a tad…don’t like to hera that something needs attention THAT quickly, ya know?!? But on November 4th, they sliced and diced me. I left with 5 stitches and a numb belly! haha
2 internal and 3 external stitches
I waited 2 weeks…they told me “no news is good news”. So I was pretty happy to NOT get a call from Kaiser. Today I had to go back in and get my stitches removed. I asked the nurse as she was taking me back…”so my biopsy came back good I’m assuming since I never heard about it, right?” She said “yeah that’s what took so long (they called me back 15 minutes later than my appt time), I had get authorization to read you the results” Immediately my stomach dropped. Oh noooooo I could NOT get bad news now! So my heart started racing. We went into my “room” (curtained off area) and she told me that the results read that I had some abnormal cells mixed in with my normal cells from the spot. So I asked…abnormal meaning cancer? And she said well not specifically cancer but abnormal (she didn’t seem confident with her information) BUT the margins came back clear meaning they got all of it! She said “lets just say good thing they opted to take it out when they did and they got it all in the first attempt” ::sigh:: ohhh thank god. I didn’t continue to ask too many questions since she didn’t seem to REALLY know and I didn’t care as long as they got it all and I’m good now!
So yeah…that’s been another thing kinda weighing on my mind. AND When I had that flu it was horrible…trying to hobble to the toilet with my broken food and puking and dry-heaving for hours upon hours with 5 stitches in the belly wasn’t exactly comfortable either. haha See why I was so down in the dumps?!? But life is good now…just finished up for Thanksgiving break…I must go now and have a celebratory glass of zin…STILL no cancer AND a break from work!! whoooohooo. Cheers!
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