Let me just start out by saying, this last month has just been absolutely overwhelming. Last time I gave you guys an update I think, was about a month ago after I got the low back MRI results suggesting that I had metastatic breast cancer. At that point I was already exhausted and in just in unbelievable pain. I could barely sleep, think or function. Once we had the results from the MRI, things began to change. My primary doc started talking about getting things set up to send me to an oncologist; which was a story unto itself.
My primary doctor told me that they had sent in a referral to a nearby oncology clinic. Not one willing to wait for answers, I quickly called the office in the hopes of getting set up with an appointment sooner rather than later. But, when I called them, they told me that they had denied the referral because my blood count was fine. Which completely threw me off because blood counts had nothing to do with the kind of cancer the doctors were saying that I had. Turned out that the referral had been sent to the hemotology side (blood cancer) rather than the oncology side (other cancers), so the confusion had things all screwed up. But while I had this gal on the phone, she was telling me that she used to work on the oncology side and that the doctors were really good and that they should be able to get me in reasonably soon once the referral was fixed because the office had just hired a new cancer doctor. Somewhat jokingly I told the lady, “Well, they had better watch out then. Because if the new doctor is any good, someone is going to try to come along and steal them.” Because it seems like that’s how it always goes right? You finally find a really good doctor who listens and understands you and just does a really outstanding job and some other office or hospital comes along and steals your doctor right out from under your nose. Then you find yourself left with some lame, sub standard doctor who apparently is only capable of listening to the first five words out of your mouth. (Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you get the idea right?)
I think that happened on a Wednesday, so the very next day I get a phone call from my primary care doctors office telling me that the day before a random oncologist had stopped at their office. Apparently my primary doc and this oncologist had gone out to lunch together and over lunch the primary doc consulted with this oncologist about my case . The oncologist gave them some suggestions about what scans I should have done next and then offered to take over my case.
Turns out, this new to town oncologist was the same new oncologist at the office I was supposed to be referred to. Which means, that while I was telling hematology to be careful or someone would steal their new doctor, their new doctor was across town stealing ME. I about had to pick my jaw right up off the floor with that one. I’m still shaking my head over it and it’s been almost a month now. I haven’t told the doctor about that one yet. Even in the midst of everything God is still working in mysterious ways and maintaining His sense of humor apparently, lol.
Following that particular branch of irony, life continued to assert itself again. I got sent in for a full body scan and hip to shoulder CAT scan. Both of them came back saying the same thing, with added bits of details along the way.
They found bone lesions, lots of bone lesions, apparently enough that at some point, they just quit counting the spots. Apparently my pelvis, particularly the right side, lit up brighter than a Christmas tree on the scans. My sacrum (tailbone zone) had been so badly weakened by the lesions that it was actually fractured on the right side. Which really helped explain why I was having so much pain there near the sciatic nerve. The scans showed lesions and holes in my bones from my knees to the top of my spine. Spots are dotted throughout the bones in my spine and my ribs, with an additional questionable spot in my left elbow. The spots are on both sides of my body. Basically, at that point, whatever it was, it was all over the place.
Thankfully, as far as the scans could tell at this point, whatever it was was limited to the bones themselves. Next up came the bone biopsy. That however, is a story until itself. So stay tuned.
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