medical

I’ve just come back from the consultation with my gynecologist, and we’ve got a game plan now for my next medical adventure, joy oh glee.

Here’s what we know now. I had a fibroid in my uterus, described by the doctor as about the size of his thumb, and specifically “precancerous”. Which puts it into a category comparable with the other tumors and things my body’s generated, in my thyroid and in my breast. Additionally, once I explained my history to the doctor, he told Dara and me that the thyroid, uterus, ovaries, breasts, and colon are a known, common cluster of problems.

So yeah. Thyroid, been there done that had it out. Breasts, yep. And while my ovaries haven’t demonstrated a problem YET, they are at risk given that I’ve already had a breast incident. Now I have a uterine incident too. Which leaves the colon, which, moving forward, we’ll be keeping an early eye on just to be on top of it in case THAT part of me decides to join in on these shenanigans.

I told him that the main thing troubling me was that I now have a clear and demonstrated tendency for these precancerous tumors*, which led into the discussion of the aforementioned common clustering of problems. This, taken together with my mother’s history of cancer (as previously described), how I’ve got at least one known cousin with a thyroid issue, and another known cousin fighting stage 4 bone cancer, pretty much equals ‘yes, the uterus has to come out’. (ETA: And yes, the ovaries and my tubes are coming out, too. Since the doctor said that some ovarian cancers are actually cancers of the Fallopian tubes, and again, since my ovaries are at higher risk given my prior history.)

My primary care doc is backing up the surgeon, so yeah, we’re going to do this.

We now have the procedure targeted for November 11th, just after OryCon, since if I have to deal with this, I want to get it done and dealt with and not have to worry about it. We’ll be doing a procedure that’ll allow for fastest possible recovery time–I should have probably about a week of downtime, and after that, by the week of the 18th, I should hopefully be coherent (and bored!) enough that I can get on the VPN to get back to work. By the week of the 25th, if I’m physically up for it, I should be able to resume going back into the office. (We’ll have to see if I can do my usual bus + walking 4 miles a day commute; I suspect that at least for a few weeks, I’ll be doing the two-bus version of my commute. Let’s not even discuss driving. Bleh.)

So. Plan’s in place. We’re going to do this thing. More bulletins as events warrant.

* Here to tell ya, folks, “generating precancerous tumors” rather sucks as a superpower. I DEMAND A REFUND. Or at least if I have to keep this as a disadvantage on my character sheet, I want compensatory extra dice on my “Learn All The Tunes by Ear” and “Learn All the French” skills.

(Though more seriously, Dara and I have started wondering WTF is up with my system. Clearly I have a bug in my genetic code somewhere.)

I got the call this morning from the RN at Evergreen’s breast center, who told me that the results are clean, and that they are likely just the results of passing benign cysts that just sometimes happen in breast tissue.

I told her she’d just handed me one HELL of a birthday present and thanked her profusely. :~) You guys, I don’t even WORDS for how relieved I am, and I’m a goddamn novelist. Coming up with words is what I do!

I posted a bit about this on the social networks, but here’s a somewhat longer report.

What I went in for this morning at Evergreen was a stereotactic biopsy. Which basically means, a minimally invasive procedure in which they use targeted imaging and a thin needle. I had to lay face down on a table with a hole in it, so as to let them get at the tissue they needed to get at. And they shot me up with three different kinds of numbing agents, which was good; otherwise all the various pokings and proddings would have been a lot more uncomfortable than they actually were.

The doctor and the nurse tech (Dr. Shook and Jennifer, respectively, as they introduced themselves to me) who did the procedure looked pretty familiar to me, once I showed up, from the first round of fun I had with this. Which would be almost amusing if not for the whole “not wanting to do this again” thing, but hey. They’re good people and they do their job well.

And their job was done well this morning, thankfully. There was some concern about their being able to get to the tissue they needed to get to, given that the calcifications in question were so tiny that that might have been a problem. But they came in from the underside of my breast, and got a good track to the calcifications–so they did get the samples that they needed. And they promised to fast-track the samples through Pathology, so as to hopefully have them for me when I come in to talk to Dr. Towbin tomorrow. (Dr. Towbin, comma, who I also remember from the previous round of fun; kinda difficult to not remember the surgeon who does major surgery on you, even five years after the fact.) I asked them to yes, please, do try to get me the results before Wednesday, since if it’s going to be bad news, I’d just as soon NOT get it on my birthday, thanks.

So. All things considered, it went as well as possible. When they were done they took a couple of quick mammogram images, and sent me home with a yellow rose.

Consolation Rose

I’m under instructions to take acetaminophen as needed for pain, and to ice the affected area for the next couple of days. I’ve been having trouble keeping my mental ducks in a row for most of the afternoon, and had to zonk out for a while; but then, I did just have a biopsy done, and I’m still kind of stressy and just waiting for whether the shoe is going to drop tomorrow morning. So I’m trying to cut myself a little bit of slack on that even as I’m trying to get work done, both for the day job and for the writing.

More bulletins as events warrant.