Life has been so good without that damn tumor in my lower left abdomen! My quality of life has definitely improved by 1000000%. Of course I still have residual sensory nerve damage. But it's bearable. And it's getting better. Well, it's better when i take my 2400 mg of gabapentin a day- I definitely feel a difference when i don't take the medication! :X
Anyway, if you remember my past blogs, all you saw was F this and F that. I have found that since I am no longer in excruciating pain anymore, I have no need to use those words, so being pain free really does make a difference, haha! I can't say I am TOTALLY pain free though. Pain still permeates my lower pelvic area. It's the same pain. And when I have the pain, it's terrible (though not as terrible as the other tumor was), and when the pain is NOT there, I think to myself ,"what am I worried about?" I hate how much of a difference the pain makes in my way of thinking, I mean, when it's happening and when it's not happening. It's like night and day.
So between my crazy schedule, working, school, homework, GISA meetings (I am the Communications/Marketing VP of the Graduate International Student Assocation- I applied to be president but LOST haha- so the president invited me to be a member of the Leadership Team and I happily accepted. Figured it would be stupid to apply for PRESIDENT and then not do anything. I gues the other candidates felt that way. I guess. dumb) I have been REALLY busy but REALLY well. I have had SOME fun in between all the work. I went apple picking with John and one of my friends. I also met the Great Anne Shigley (the person who owns the blog I mentioned in my previous blog- she invited me to join her blog- we were connected by a mutual friend) for breakfast the other day while she was in Boston for really fun things like a Vestibular Research Test, Pre Op stuff, etc. Very fun stuff for her. :)
Most (or maybe ALL) of my friends in the program are taking their Comprehensive Exams this weekend, but I am taking them NEXT semester. It will be during my anniversary weekend...eek. Oh well! I really like my program and my classmates and I especially love my job and my supervisor and co workers. Oh and my husband. Life is swell!
While life is SWELL, there is something I've kept mum about, but I guess it's fine to reveal it now! I've only told a handful of people about this prior to this blog. My PET/CT that I had in August to characterize my tumor (that ended up being covered in brown fat) revealed something else: I have stuff in my lungs! They are small, between 2 mm and 4 mm, but they cover both lungs. There's also a cyst there. Next week (Nov 1) I am having a follow up CT to make sure they didn't grow. There is a .01% chance they could grow- to the radiologists, they looked like pulmonary nodules, which are common in people who smoke or live in or work in bad environmental conditions: 1) I grew up in a smoker's household 2) I lived for a year in heavily polluted Xinxiang City in Henan, China and 3) I live in a city, with lots of pollutants in the air- so it's not likely these growths can be anything else. But I'm still worried. What if they did grow? Could they be NF tumors? I shouldn't worry (because I trust my doctor when she tells me not to worry!) but I do. I see my primary care doctor less than 24 hrs after the CT scan, which also worries me- is she expediting the results? Usually results come back more than 24 hrs later. Maybe it's a small facility, so it's easy for them to read it. I don' tknow. And in My Health Online, where I can keep track of appts, and email my doctors, her appointment (which usually is listed under Office Visit) is listed under Chronic Disease Management- which worries me too. What if I do have lung disease? GAHHH.
Oh well, all I know is that I have growths in my lungs which are (at the moment) deemed to be quite normal, and I have the best primary care doctor on the planet, so I am in good hands.
Thankfully the process of getting my PET/CT images from the hospital TO my doctor was not a hassle like other procuring of images has been! I didn't even have to do the authorization in person! thank goodness for fax machines!
It is snowing today. It's not the most unusual thing in the world to have snow in the Northeast in late October, but it's definitely the biggest snow fall in October in a while! I had to get my teeth cleaned this AM- thankfully I didn't have to be out when it started! I've been tucked away in our tiny apartment. It was FREEZING in here, but John covered the window behind his computer (we keep plastic on our windows all year long, but the cats tore apart the plastic on this one window so we took it down) and it made a huge difference! I also made my famous chicken chili (and it was spicier than I've ever cooked it, even spicer than how I made it for our first GISA event!), so that kept us warm haha.
Nothing else is new because all I do is schoolwork. I will keep you posted on the results of my chest CT!
Anyway, if you remember my past blogs, all you saw was F this and F that. I have found that since I am no longer in excruciating pain anymore, I have no need to use those words, so being pain free really does make a difference, haha! I can't say I am TOTALLY pain free though. Pain still permeates my lower pelvic area. It's the same pain. And when I have the pain, it's terrible (though not as terrible as the other tumor was), and when the pain is NOT there, I think to myself ,"what am I worried about?" I hate how much of a difference the pain makes in my way of thinking, I mean, when it's happening and when it's not happening. It's like night and day.
So between my crazy schedule, working, school, homework, GISA meetings (I am the Communications/Marketing VP of the Graduate International Student Assocation- I applied to be president but LOST haha- so the president invited me to be a member of the Leadership Team and I happily accepted. Figured it would be stupid to apply for PRESIDENT and then not do anything. I gues the other candidates felt that way. I guess. dumb) I have been REALLY busy but REALLY well. I have had SOME fun in between all the work. I went apple picking with John and one of my friends. I also met the Great Anne Shigley (the person who owns the blog I mentioned in my previous blog- she invited me to join her blog- we were connected by a mutual friend) for breakfast the other day while she was in Boston for really fun things like a Vestibular Research Test, Pre Op stuff, etc. Very fun stuff for her. :)
Most (or maybe ALL) of my friends in the program are taking their Comprehensive Exams this weekend, but I am taking them NEXT semester. It will be during my anniversary weekend...eek. Oh well! I really like my program and my classmates and I especially love my job and my supervisor and co workers. Oh and my husband. Life is swell!
While life is SWELL, there is something I've kept mum about, but I guess it's fine to reveal it now! I've only told a handful of people about this prior to this blog. My PET/CT that I had in August to characterize my tumor (that ended up being covered in brown fat) revealed something else: I have stuff in my lungs! They are small, between 2 mm and 4 mm, but they cover both lungs. There's also a cyst there. Next week (Nov 1) I am having a follow up CT to make sure they didn't grow. There is a .01% chance they could grow- to the radiologists, they looked like pulmonary nodules, which are common in people who smoke or live in or work in bad environmental conditions: 1) I grew up in a smoker's household 2) I lived for a year in heavily polluted Xinxiang City in Henan, China and 3) I live in a city, with lots of pollutants in the air- so it's not likely these growths can be anything else. But I'm still worried. What if they did grow? Could they be NF tumors? I shouldn't worry (because I trust my doctor when she tells me not to worry!) but I do. I see my primary care doctor less than 24 hrs after the CT scan, which also worries me- is she expediting the results? Usually results come back more than 24 hrs later. Maybe it's a small facility, so it's easy for them to read it. I don' tknow. And in My Health Online, where I can keep track of appts, and email my doctors, her appointment (which usually is listed under Office Visit) is listed under Chronic Disease Management- which worries me too. What if I do have lung disease? GAHHH.Oh well, all I know is that I have growths in my lungs which are (at the moment) deemed to be quite normal, and I have the best primary care doctor on the planet, so I am in good hands.
Thankfully the process of getting my PET/CT images from the hospital TO my doctor was not a hassle like other procuring of images has been! I didn't even have to do the authorization in person! thank goodness for fax machines!
It is snowing today. It's not the most unusual thing in the world to have snow in the Northeast in late October, but it's definitely the biggest snow fall in October in a while! I had to get my teeth cleaned this AM- thankfully I didn't have to be out when it started! I've been tucked away in our tiny apartment. It was FREEZING in here, but John covered the window behind his computer (we keep plastic on our windows all year long, but the cats tore apart the plastic on this one window so we took it down) and it made a huge difference! I also made my famous chicken chili (and it was spicier than I've ever cooked it, even spicer than how I made it for our first GISA event!), so that kept us warm haha.
Nothing else is new because all I do is schoolwork. I will keep you posted on the results of my chest CT!
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