It's always something

I really don't mind doctor visits. It's just one more thing to do now like grocery shopping.

I had a visit with a gynocologist yesterday. Her name is Dr. Forsythe and she's the first gynocologist I've dealt with. I have a family doctor named Dr. Hughes who is incredible and I've seen for a million years. I was so nervous to see her. I didn't know what to expect or anything. She was so nice! She put me at ease and wanted me to know that things were fine and if I chose to do anything, she would be my servant.

She and I talked about my history and she got the results from my visit with Dr. Hughes. I had only heard that I was fine through Dr. Hughes nurse. Dr. Forsythe read the results and frowned and said that it seems that she didn't get a good enough sample of tissue. But she wanted me to have an ultrasound first and if after that I needed another biopsy, we would go forward.

She gave me the lowdown on having an oophorectomy and hysterectomy and stuff like that. Most all of my questions were answered and that helped a lot. I left there knowing that she was completely on my side no matter what I decided to do.

I got a call from the radiologist office last night. They wanted me to come in this morning and have the ultrasound. Mom and S watch the girls and I go in. They wanted me to drink 32 oz of water before coming in. Last time I had to do that, I was going in for a much happier purpose. But anyways, I go in. It seemed to me that she focused more on the left side. Then I had a vaginal ultrasound and that was fairly uncomfortable. Nothing hurt, but it was not something I want to do again. It had a camera on the end of the probe and the tech had to take pictures of all sorts of things inside. So if she wanted a picture of the side, she had to point it that way and it's really doesn't feel good to have her move that probe/wand around like that.

I always leave appointments like that feeling really small and depressed. Just the way the tech was and the fact that she couldn't tell me anything really worried me. I told her that I would have a followup on January 8th, but that I didn't want to wait that long. She suggested calling the doctor. Which did NOT help my nerves at all. I leave the appointment and pull over halfway home and leave a message for my doctor to call me. My voice was really shaky and I was almost crying on the phone asking her to call me so I wouldn't worry over Christmas.

I get to Mom's and I start to lose it. I'm worried about how the tech was, my imagination going into overdrive, and I really don't want to do this again. I didn't want to involve Mom because I didn't want to worry her but I couldn't help it. I just started bawling at the table. I can handle doing it all again, I just don't know if my family can. I couldn't get ahold of dh to talk to him and I wanted to because things have really been going well for us lately. More cheerful and happy and loving. I needed him and he couldn't talk with me while he was at work.

Anyways, the doctor calls me back. I have cysts in my ovaries which can happen every month. When you have a period you usually expel them and they go away. But because the tamoxifen has suppressed the hormones, they haven't gone away. My uterus is (slightly, I think) enlarged and my uterine lining is unusually thick. That can be explained possibly by the fact that I haven't had my period in a really long time and that's why I had a heavy period. The lining usually sheds during your period and since I have only had one in a long time, it's built up.

But you know, I don't know if I believe that it's all roses. I feel leery of the attitude I'm getting from the doctors but I want to believe them so badly. It's the attitude that I had when I was finding out I had breast cancer. It's probably nothing, you're too young, don't worry about it, etc., etc. They are reassuring me and it reeks of when this was going on before. So they tell me not to worry and of course because of my suspicions, I worry even more and am even more messed up.

I'm sure it's nothing, but I don't really believe anything. What if it's not? I'm really emotional and weepy and messed up today. It doesn't help that I have a million things to do and absolutely no desire to do a damn thing. I want a good movie, blanket on my lap, me sitting in my recliner, and a pepsi in one hand. I just don't care about anything today.

Wordless Wednesday

I haven't done this in a while and I can never resist a sleeping baby, especially mine.

Benign!!

I had the test results back from my doctor visit with Dr. Hughes. For a recap, I had a pap smear and uterine biopsy. The test results came back benign. The nurse called me and I knew almost at once that it was okay because my doctor would call me herself with any big news. So when she told me the results were benign, I was sooooooo relieved. I'm still seeing Dr. Forsythe on Thursday and see if the tamoxifen really is the cause of this or what's going on.

Visits with doctors and other thoughts

I have a doctor visit next Thursday with a gynocologist to see what's going on down south and if it's something I need to be concerned with. Once my oncologist called my regular doctor, the regular doctor scheduled me for an exam yesterday. I went in and she gave me hugs and had an exam.

First off, Jason took time off to be with me for this exam. Second, my flow was gone and just some leftover ickyness. Third, we had L with us instead of having someone watch her. L started to freak out when the doctor got in "position" to examine me. She covered her eyes and wanted out. But dh held her and wouldn't leave because he wanted to hear what the doctor was saying. It turns out that when I talked to L later, she thought that the doctor was going to cut into my privates area as she called it. I feel so bad that I may have scared her so badly. We talked and I tried to explain to a 4 year old that the doctor wanted to check and make sure I didn't have any owies down there. I didn't get specific, because at 4 years old, she has heard and seen too much already thanks to breast cancer.

I get my finger pricked by the nurse to check my crit levels and find out I'm borderline anemic. Great. So the doctor does the exam and she gets going and she's talking as she's doing the grand old speculum and other stuff. She said she couldn't see what the doctor in the ER meant by my uterus being friable but she took samples in a Pap smear and other goodies. And just to be on the safe side, they did a uterine biopsy. They took a long skinny probe and grabbed a bit of tissue from my uterus to test for any abnormalities. The other tests just felt like they were scratching the sides, but this felt like I had a balloon inside of me and she was trying to poke it was a needle. I had some cramping afterwards, but nothing like earlier in the week. She said it was hard to tell because I was just ending this period and there was a lot of blood in there. She wants to see me after Christmas when it's all done with.

I have no idea when I'll get test results back, but I'm guessing Monday or Tuesday. I know in the back of my mind that there's a small chance of some type of cancer, either uterine or cervical. But I'm doing my best not to focus on it. I'm trying to be so careful now. If I sneeze and think I have bronchitis, they want to do a chest xray. If I trip scratch my knee, better check and see why this happened. Everything is a big deal now and nothing is normal anymore. All because of breast cancer.

I want to write this out before I forget. I usually like to cook. I don't know that I do it well, but adore searching out recipes and making things and going grocery shopping. But for two weeks I can't even stand the thought of cooking. I'm not hungry, I could care less if my kids ate cold cereal(like they want) every day for a week for dinner, etc. Then it hit me. I've been dealing with this period from hell for about two weeks if you count the pmsing stuff before the period. I just never connected it together before. I have no energy, I feel like a giant blob, I'm getting heavier, and I just don't care about anything. (Well, except my new obsession with Scentsy and that's a whole other post for another day.)

You don't want to ever think that it's going to come back. I'm trying so hard not to let my imagination go wild because it can so easily. I don't want to think about the worst, I don't want to think of all the bad stuff, I want whatever it is to be easily fixed. No more cancer. I will pass this time around. If only it were that easy. Just give me the hysterectomy and I'm done with all female parts. lol

My trip to the ER this weekend

I haven't had a period since like 2 days after coming home from my mastectomy in April 2006. It's been great. No blood, no mess, no anything. I would get horrid mood swings, but I was willing to deal with that if I didn't have the blood.

Last month I got what I call the"warning" cramps. The kind that come just like a day or two before your period starts. Then I got a yucky brown discharge for a day or two. I mentioned it to my oncologist and he didn't seem too concerned. Well this month I started to get those funky cramps again. But this time they got way worse and then I started to bleed. Not a little bit, but tons. I was soaking a super plus tampon and pad every 90 minutes or so. Not good. It got so bad Saturday night, that I felt something funny and went to the bathroom. I had bled through my pad, my undies, and my pajamas. Clots were passing and it was like I was literally dripping bright red blood! It was gross and disgusting. Jason was with the girls helping them go to sleep. So I call my mom and wake her up with all this.

I thought with tamoxifen that I wouldn't have a period for 5 years. Through all the info I've been given, that's what I understood would happen. So when I got this heavy heavy period, it totally threw me for a loop and scared me. Even when I had periods, they were never like this, even after having my babies. She said to go to the ER for it. I felt dumb and scared, so I called my oncall oncologist and he said it's fairly unusual to bleed like that on tamoxifen and it might be a good idea to go in to the ER. So I have to wake up dh and tell him what's going on. He insisted on coming with me and managed to get my inlaws to come over and sleep on the couch for us.I felt like all this was unnecessary but I was still kind of scared. All sorts of things went through my mind.

But we get to Adventist(closest hospital but I would have preferred SWMC) and we were the only ones there! Saturday night in an emergency room? Seemed crazy to me. Got back fairly quickly and into a private little room. I was given an IV because they wanted me to have liquids in me in case I was becoming anemic. That HURT!! I told the nurse that and she said they don't mess around in the ER. They find a good vein and get it without second guesses or stopping to see if it hurts. It did. Plus all the lovely tape they put on my arm to keep it in place. It was in the middle of my forearm on the backside.

Anyways, I had to lay on one of those lovely pads and dress in one of those nasty ugly backless gowns. I was always fine when a nurse or the doctor came in, but once they would leave, I would start shaking almost uncontrollably. I finally laid down and that helped a bit. They took my blood and told me I was not anemic, so that's good. The doctor came in and started the internal exam and barely got started and could tell that things weren't right. She said that my uterus was "fried" or "friable" whatever that means. I'm still researching it. Said it's soft and moveable. Anyways, they wanted to give me progesterone hormones to stop the bleeding. I can't have that since my breast cancer is hormone driven. So I was given a prescription for Naproxem (dur, Aleve) and just for fun, they asked me what I like to take for pain. I told them after surgeries I would have Vicodin or Percoset. So they wrote me up one for Vicodin. I was really surprised but happy. Sometimes you just need one and I was out for a long time.

We leave the ER around 3am with instructions to call m regular doc, my oncologist, and a gynocologist on Monday. We also had to find a 24 hour pharmacy to fill my prescriptions. We ended up going to the Walgreens by Peacock Lane and wandering around in there while my stuff was filled. We got home around 3:40am and didn't get into bed till close to 4am. My girls never even knew that their grandparents were here. They snoozed through all of it. Thank heavens for my inlaws. They came over immediately and slept on the couch and easy chair while we were at the hospital.

Sunday night I started to lose it with all the info I had because i was getting a stomach pains and I just could not handle anything else happening. Our whole family has been doing the urps and poops and yuckies lately and I could NOT handle one more things going on while I was worried about all ths. So dh called President P and he came over and watched me cry and listened to what was going on. Then he and dh gave me a blessing. He hugged me and said he loved me which started me off again.

It's now Tuesday afternoon and the bloodflow has slowed down considerably and I haven't had cramps for almost 24 hours. I'm very very grateful. I have doctor appointments with my regular doctor on Thursday and a new gynocologist next week.

The one thing I'm happy about is how well I handled things in the hospital. Nothing bothered me. I've been through worse, so anything the nurse told me, I was fine with. I know there is a slight risk of uterine or cervical cancer with tamoxifen use, but I'm not going to worry about that till I have these other doctor visits and find out what's up. I'm good with a hysterectomy if I need to, but that's down the road a ways.

So think good thoughts this week as I go through more doctor visits!!!

My launch party

I was having a really hard time with this stinking party. My nerves were shot and I've been waking up at 5:30a every morning and going to bed at close to midnight for a week. Plus the girls have been sick and I'm catching what they have. I felt like my whole body was shaking all day. But the party went off fine. I think the anticipation was the worst part. Once I got up and started talking, I realized I could make it my own and present it how I liked. It was mostly my family and about 3 ladies from church. So a total of maybe 10 people all together. That part was disappointing but no problem. I picked a bad night because most everyone in my ward was going to the high school play where some kids in the ward were starring in. But everyone who came ordered something and really seemed to like what the products were about. I had Jason stay with me for support and he was funny trying to get people to try certain scents. I think he was responsible for everyone who ordered the Cinco De Mayo scent last night. lol

Anyways, I took pictures of how I had everything set up and it turned out really well. There are over 80 different scents in 6 categories, so I divded them up so they weren't bunched altogether.