gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (Keep Calm)
Douglas Berry ([personal profile] gridlore) wrote2016-08-04 01:40 pm
Entry tags:

Another quick medical update.

OK, to clear things up.

A while ago I had a PET scan. Normal for me, with my medical history. Around that time we noticed an odd bump on my abdomen that would come and go. We thought it might be a hernia.

However, that was when the annual "State Fucks Up My Health Care" festival was scheduled. This year, they decided to transfer close to a quarter of my doctor's patients from our current program to one no one had ever heard of (and one that never answered phone calls or emails) which made it so he couldn't see us or give referrals.

This didn't affect my specialists. My oncologist, seeing some unusual metabolic activity in my lymph nodes, ordered a CT scan. Which showed some slightly-enlarged lymph nodes, but the accompanying lab work didn't show any signs of my body trying to fight a cancer. So that's something we're going to monitor.

But what the CT did reveal was a subcutaneous mass on my abdominal wall. I was sent for a surgical consult to decide if we just wanted to do a needle biopsy or go full chainsaw. As needle biopsies are literally hit or miss when it comes to getting good results; it was an easy choice to slice me open and pull out more bits.

Odds are this is a mass of fatty tissue or a cyst. But getting it out so the lab geeks can poke it with scientific sticks is important. From what I understand, I'll not be under a general, but rather extremely stoned and numbed. It's outpatient, barring complications, and I'll have a new scar.

Surgery is scheduled for August 9th. Offerings to Kamrusepa welcomed.
claidheamhmor: (Default)

[personal profile] claidheamhmor 2016-08-05 12:03 pm (UTC)(link)
All the best with it.
nodrog: (Angrezi Raj)

Dämmerschlaf

[personal profile] nodrog 2016-08-05 05:18 pm (UTC)(link)
That's called “twilight sleep.”  I was going to experience it at the removal of a cyst on my finger, but I declined the procedure and discouraged the cyst into remission instead.  (No kidding.  What was a deep painful subcutaneous blister is now a painless dormant pencil-dot I have to feel to detect at all.  You gotta be firm with these things.)
freyjaw: (health)

[personal profile] freyjaw 2016-08-08 01:08 am (UTC)(link)
Prayers en route for an easy removal and a benign result! I worry about you.
Edited 2016-08-08 01:09 (UTC)