GlobalMegaBlog

Infuriatingly, we didn’t get conclusive results today. They said it’s most likely Hodgkin’s lymphoma (apparently, there are Hodgkin’s and Non-Hodgkin’s, the latter of which covers all the other types), but they’ll need to do further tests to confirm this, the results of which we won’t get until Thursday. However, bottom line is that it’s definitely a cancer of one sort or another, so I’ll be starting chemo at some point. Not sure how soon that will start – we have an appointment to talk to the doctor tomorrow, so I will find out then. One thing the doctor did say was that apparently when you start chemo, your kidneys can have a hard time coping with all the extra chemicals in your body, so they want to get me started on another drug which will help my kidneys when that happens. That’s something else I need to ask more about tomorrow.

On another note, my INR is slowly climbing again. Unfortunately, not enough to get me off the daily injections yet (It’s at 1.4 and needs to be at 2.0 before they’ll stop the injections), so I have another 3 days of being stabbed in the stomach twice a day, then they’ll check my level again and if it’s high enough, we can stop. I’m keeping my fingers crossed because we’re running out of spaces on my stomach to inject.

Anyway, I’ll post another update when I hear more from the doctor.

Had the biopsy yesterday. It was kind of scary, especially when there was a power cut while we were sitting in the room prior to being wheeled into the operating room. That didn’t exactly help my nerves, but the power came back, and they told me I didn’t have to do it today, but by then I was there and ready to go and didn’t want to have to do it all again, so I told them I wanted to get it over with.

Then they tried to get an IV in my hand, but they weren’t able to do it, they were digging around trying to get it in, putting me in enourmous amounts of pain. Eventually they stopped and agreed that the anesthesiologist would do it later. So about half an hour later, he came in and put the IV in, which was good because by this time, I hadn’t had anything to drink for about 12 hours and I was seriously de-hydrated.

A few minutes later, they wheeled me into the OR, made me move across to the operating table, and at the same time gave me the anesthetic. I remember saying “Hey, I feel really drows… “, and then I woke up in the recovery room. This was quite a bizarre effect, but I’m glad I was very nicely knocked out for the whole thing.

Came home about an hour or so later. I’m not in a huge amount of pain – it’s more a sort of dull ache in my neck. I have vicodin though which I’m taking fairly regularly, but the pain is still enough to make sleeping difficult, so it’s going to be a few days until I’m back to normal.

Now all we have to do is wait until Monday to find out what the verdict is.. I’m trying not to think about it for now. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Actually, I’ve just been wanting to use that pun for a while.

Last night, Monday 23rd December, I went to bed and started experiencing my usual coughing fit that I’ve been getting when going to bed. Only this time, it wouldn’t stop. Sarah got all concerned and insisted we go to the ER to get it checked out. I wasn’t a huge fan of this idea, it being 1am and all, and me not wanting to have yet more needles stuck in me, but I eventually grudgingly agreed to go.

We got there, explained the symptoms to the doctor, and he sent me off for a lung scan again (same as the one I had before). Oddly enough, there was no sign of the clot in my right lung, but there were 2 new clots in my left lung. Once again, they admitted me to the hospital.

At this point, I think my exact words were.. “Oh well, at least the year can’t get any worse than this”. Someone needs to hit me next time I say that.

After admitting me, a hematologist came by and talked to me and said that he was concerned that I was generating new clots. It seems having Factor V Leiden shouldn’t be enough to just cause this to happen randomly, so he wanted to do a cat scan. They made me drink these 2 jars of stuff with the consistency of wallpaper paste. I had a hard time keeping it down, but it was ok in the end.. The cat scan revealed.. swollen lymph nodes! Which means.. I probably have cancer (lymphoma). I’m out of the hospital now, but I’m going back on Friday when they’ll take a biopsy of one of my lymph nodes and find out for certain if this is the case. It seems likely, since this would also explain the sudden onslaught of clots.

On the plus side, this does mean that I have something which can be cured, and hopefully won’t have to spend the rest of my life on the blood thinning drugs. I guess we’ll see..