Medical update

Medical update as of yesterday: waiting for my period to start to get x-rays. As of today: waiting for test results.

I really was comfortable with going ahead with the x-ray because I was really sure I wasn’t pregnant. But my doctor tapped my file (record: 8 miscarriages, 2 live births, 1 living child… god that’s 1/10) and looked at me and hmmed and said no, wait. So I did. And of course I had a long wait, ’cause my body is helpful like that. Anyways, today I was fine to go so I went.

Saw the ultrasound technician who was chattier than usual. Lymph nodes in neck still large: check; larger than last time in fact, and it is “technically possible” that they are causing the headaches. Chest x-ray: taken. Results will be back to my doctor tomorrow or Thursday. She doesn’t work one of those two days, so I’ll say Friday just to be good. The X-ray is looking for a) anything mechanical that might’ve gone wrong, ’cause the original pain I have could be simply a break of the um scapula? the bone up by your throat. But mostly b) looking for tumours.

B) is a little freaky.

If these come back negative, I’m on the list for a MRI to look for lesions (MS), and also to examine the spine. I think. Something like that. I also have to watch the thyroid nodules but they seem to be the least of the problems (although with the lymph nodes next to them swollen, they may well have to be biopsied. So may the lymph nodes. Joy.).

It is going really slowly. Part of this is that my doctor’s having issues so she’s not in the office as much as usual, and part of it is the Canadian system.* And part of it is how badly I suck at getting across how lousy I feel or what my physical experience really is. It gets fragmented, as I think it does for lots of people, but the added dollop is that I am never entirely able to connect with emotion while in a doctor’s office. So I can be at home thinking “my god! this is bad!” and get in the doctor’s office and say, “oh yes… it was bad?” . o O (I think?)

Also I don’t entirely feel pain in doctor’s offices. I mean I do, but I don’t. So the poking around “Does this hurt?” “… yes?” doesn’t go that well. This is one reason I actually wait for my own doctor to be in the office to see. She may not entirely get it, but she does know me and she knows that if I say “… yes?” I mean “OW OW OW.”

(Except labour was painful. Well kind of. I never did feel a contraction with Noah as anything serious until after I panicked over the epidural(1). And then I felt one painful contraction. And then I pushed and he came out. But with Emily yes, oh my god, that hurt.)

Anyways, so I did the tests and I wrote down a list of problems I have been having and how bad they were, like last weekend’s exhaustion-fest. So soon I’ll go in and do my best to say OW OW OW.

* Although it’s erroneous to think this, as I am one hundred percent aware (see: Emily, died), many Canadians take speed to be a reasonably accurate indicator of how sick they are. If the bloodwork came back from the lab and my doctor’s office called with an appointment with a specialist, I would know that the results were not good. If no one ever calls, the results are good.

This is especially true where Great Big Expensive Machines are concerned. The time I thought I was having a stroke, I had a MRI within the hour. That I can’t get in until the end of November could be taken as a sign that nothing is going to kill me. But then, see above.**

** The bad sign today was that my doctor had forgotten to check off a box for the x-ray so they were going to make me come back tomorrow, but after the ultrasound they took me for an x-ray despite lack of proper box-checking.

(1) Why was I getting an epidural with no pain? Because we thought we were 99% of the way to a c-section because the written orders were to go to a c-section if there was EVEN ONE heart decel. As it turns out, there was one heart decel – but he was out before the doctor read the tape.