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.)
Glad to hear you have A Plan, though to say “it sucks that you need one” is like calling the Pacific Ocean ‘a little damp.’ Anyway, is the 2nd bus for getting up and down the lovely hill you have between your neighbourhood and the main drag?
Nah, I’d still have to walk down the hill unless I get Paul or Dara to drive me down to the bottom (in which case they might as well just drive me to work, really, that short a drive is kinda silly).
The second bus would get me between where I usually get off the bus downtown (in the downtown core near Pike Place Market), and Big Fish. That walk’s the majority of my daily walking and takes me about 30-40 minutes. If I’m tired or if the weather is really crappy, I can jump a bus to do that instead.