July 15, 2004
More background
9th February 2004
I've fasted since 7:00pm last night and it is now admitting time. 10:30 am. I hope that this doesn't take too long!
10th February 2004
Yow!!!
All things considered though I don't really feel too bad. I finally got into surgery at 2:30 pm They tell me that everything went well. I woke up in recovery feeling absolutely terrible. I get extremely nauseous from anaesthetics. I was nowhere near as sick as the woman who was in the bed opposite though. She was trying to talk to whoever was on the phone while she was restacking the contents of her stomach into a kidney dish!
They tell me that I am going home in little while. I have some numbness in the end of my tongue and inside of my gums but no here near as much pain as I thought I was going to have. I have an appointment on Friday with the ENT to get the results.
13th February 2004
I should have known that an appointment on Friday the 13th could not bring good news. I took Kev to the appointment with me and we waited for over two hours to see the specialist. When we finally got in to see him he was very nice. The first words out of his mouth were, " Up until Wednesday afternoon we were calling your lump a benign growth, but a second opinion from Dorovitch pathology has changed the diagnosis to Extra Nodal Marginal Zone B-Cell Lymphoma of the Malt type." What a mouthful hey?
Well I guess this means that I will be winning lotto tomorrow night. I bought a ticket with the agreement that a good diagnosis meant that I would not win the lotto and a bad one meant that I would win.
The ENT tells me that MALToma has an extremely good outlook and that if I was going to get cancer then this is the one that I would want to get. (I wonder if he would say that if it was him sitting here?) I didn't really take much in after that. I have been referred to the Peter McCallum Cancer Center in Melbourne. They will ring me with an initial consult appointment time.
14th February 2004
I did not win the lotto!
18th February
I have been sent to Ballarat again to have a CT scan just to make sure that there is nothing else going on.
23rd February 2004
I had my initial consult with the hematology oncologist today. His name is John Seymour, a really really nice person. I had my first round of appointments organized. I also saw the hospital social worker to help organize accommodation for me.
2nd March 2004
Today was the first of my appointments. Very interesting. My first test was an absolutely wonderful experience called a barium swallow and bowel x-ray. They told me that everyone who has this test gets constipated. Not me. They had to keep giving me more of the horrible stuff to drink because I could not keep it in. If you have never experienced one of these tests it is impossible for me to explain how truly repulsive this stuff is.
My second appointment was with dental oncology. I have to see them to find out if I need to have any dental work done before they start treatment. They took an x-ray of my mouth and told me what lovely teeth I have and that I have the worst impacted wisdom teeth they have ever seen. They also told me that if I have to have radiation to the head and I will have to have them out.
From Dental Oncology I went to see the Head & Neck surgeons. The young guy there has a feel of my neck and a look down my throat. He says that he can see a small bump at the root of where one of my tonsils used to be and that he would like to take a biopsy of it. So off he goes and gets a nice long set of biopsy forceps to take a little nibble. I had the back of my throat liberally sprayed with lignocaine and then he proceeds to try and take a sample. The biopsy forceps must have been blunter than a couple of bricks because he nearly had to put his foot on my chest to get enough leverage to get the damned thing out! The nice young man had two tries and was coming back for his third when he got the same message as the man who did the FNA at the ultrasound in Ballarat.
3rd March 2004
Today was the day for the dreaded Bone Marrow Biopsy. It was nowhere near as bad as I had thought it was going to be. I had to have about a million blood tests before the BMB but unfortunately as this was the second day that I have had to fast my veins have all shriveled to nothing. After the fourth try I suggested that they wait until I was sedated and then have a try. So off I went to have the BMB. They gave me this wonderful drug called medazolem. I loved everyone after that. I don't remember much of the procedure just a deep dull ache in my hip for about a minute. I do remember telling the doctor that seeing as how he had had his hands all over my bum then perhaps he should take me out to tea and get to know me better. They did eventually do the bloods while I was zoned out.
Later I also had an appointment with the upper Gastro Intestinal surgeons. Because MALToma can also be found in the gastric tract they need to have a look there so I have been scheduled for a gastroscopy and a helicobacter pylori test. ( In gastric MALT it is always caused by the h-pylori bacteria and can be cured by curing the h-pylori.)
4th March 2004
Today was the day for the PET scan. I have to say that today was not one of my better days. I got into an argument with the nurse because I had not bought a companion along which meant that they could not sedate me. They finally agreed to do the scan without sedation. I cried today for the first time but I think that it was only because I was angry. I should have all of the results back by the 10th March
Posted by Possum on July 15, 2004 04:11 AM
Oh my dear Possum,We so often take for granted symptoms or changes in our bodies. I'm guilty too, I 'didn't sleep well' for years, which meant I couldn't sleep without sleep aids and constantly was waking.....see more when My Life with Fibromyalgia gets up and running.I'm so glad you went to the doc about the lump, somehow it's better to know than not, and the earlier the better if there is something going on.I love the way you write, excerpts from your personal diary speak like we're sitting and talking.I take it you are in Australia from your reference to Melbourne. I caught your accent, yes it can be caught from your writing, when you said the docs were going to 'ring' you. I've always thought that if and when I travel abroad it would be to Australia.I look forward to more background and getting current with you.Hugs and Blessings, Judy in AZ, USA
Posted by: Judy in AZ at July 19, 2004 04:31 AM
DATE: 8/6/2004 03:43:37 PM
Dear Possum,I got your message, thx for visiting my page.I checked in on you and found no new news past the 15th of July.I'm hoping you are hanging in there and the path is toward healing and you're making your way smoothly on it.It is soo hard to not be able to do what we want because of our bodies limitations. The sleep disorder I have w/ FMS feeds the Chronic Fatigue and I tire quickly and have to say no a lot. At first it was really hard. Now it's matter of fact: Fact, I will fall down if I don't put my foot down!!I'm just wondering if the young chap with his foot on your chest and bricks in his hands trying to biopsy the back of your throat ....well if he survived?? ;) Bless your heart, all the prodding and poking and testing and humiliation of the first stripdowns, cause by the later ones you may as well just sit in the doc's office naked, they've paraded you out to every technician to check every orifice so.......or that's how I've felt (nope, never really done it myself either) But after a Barium enema xray and a colonoscopy n my younger days I gave up any sense of modesty where medicine is concerned. Again, I hope that no new news is because all is ok.Hugs and Blessings, Judy
Posted by: Judy in AZ at January 14, 2005 06:09 AM