April 13, 2012 (yes, it was Friday the 13th)

CT-guided needle biopsy of abdominal lymph nodes at Sharp Memorial, in spite of blunders by my primary physician’s office staff:  referral not received by Sharp Memorial because primary physician’s system and that of Sharp Memorial can’t “talk” to each other; biopsy coded in as being for breast (no, no, no, wrong body part); scheduling conflicts; etc. etc. etc.

Check-in was at 6:AM for the 8:AM procedure, followed by prepping with lots of blood draws and installation of the IV.


Again with the ginormous hospital gowns?

All hooked up and ready to go.

The biopsy was painless and, dare I say, downright enjoyable with the combination of Fentanyl and Versed which put me into twilight sleep (no, not the vampire kind), along with a kick-ass local anesthetic that was injected into the needle site.  I was on my tummy, as they had to go into my abdomen through my back.  I remember chatting with the nurses about our dogs, then going night-night for a while, then waking up in the middle of the procedure and chatting some more.  I could hear the instruments that were snipping/sucking/extracting the tissue samples, and felt a little pressure whenever extraction was done, and I could see the doctor passing the samples to the nurse who bottled ‘em up, but there was absolutely zero pain.  Then apparently I was injected with some kind of wake-up drug, because before they even got me off the CT table and onto the gurney for the ride back to recovery, I was totally with it.  I asked to stop at the potty outside the CT room to pee, and realized then why there had been no pain:  the local anesthetic was apparently some kind of partial epidural, and my legs were quite wobbly and only somewhat functioning.

Once back at recovery, they brought me a sandwich and juice (thank Buddha, because it had been like 15 hours since I had eaten), and I napped a little during the “observation” period. 

Post-biopsy.  Done and done.

Six and a half hours after checking in, I was done and one my way home.  Piece ‘o cake.   

March 20, 2012

Abdominal CT scan with contrast.  After changing into a hospital gown that was obviously made by a tentmaker, I was prepped by having an IV installed and flushed, then taken to the CT room.  It was a good thing I was pre-warned about what happens when the dye is injected, because when you’re lying on the CT table and the dye starts coursing through your body, it feels like you’re uncontrollably peeing.  Very weird sensation.

It's never a good thing when you receive calls from both your primary physician AND the urologist about the CT scan you just had - before you even get home. 

My primary said the CT scan showed that the lymph nodes were still enlarged, so the next step would be a biopsy.

The urologist said that the kidney stone issue seems to be resolved, and reiterated what my primary physician said - lymph nodes still enlarged, biopsy would be next on the agenda.  He ended the call with "Good luck to you."  THAT sorta freaked me out.  It was like he was telling me that his work was done and now I'll be moving into a whole 'nother ballgame.  

March 19, 2012

Follow-up appointment with the urologist, who advises another CT scan, this time with contrast (dye).  All the lab work and imaging is still a follow-up for the kidney stone; investigation of the enlarged abdominal lymph nodes is still incidental at this point (so I thought).

March 13, 2012

Follow-up appointment with my primary physician, who went over some preliminaries for kidney stone prevention:  more water intake (I'm notorious for having camel-like water consumption), more citrate, and - most critical of all - giving up dark colored sodas - nooooooooo!  I love my Coke Zero!

March 10, 2012 – around 3:AM

First mention of the word “lymphoma.”

After my first-ever ambulance ride (thanks, but I don’t want to do THAT again), I was in the emergency room of Sharp Grossmont Hospital, blissfully doped up on triple doses of morphine and other magical narcotics and finally and thankfully out of the excruciating back pain that sent me there in the first place.  Fresh back from an abdominal CT scan for a suspected kidney stone, the ER doctor came in to tell me the results:  Yep, there’s a kidney stone ready to drop into my bladder and once that happens and I pee it out, the pain will be gone – hallelujah!  That’s the good news.  But…..the CT scan also showed enlarged abdominal lymph nodes, which could be due to infection, but could also indicate lymphoma.  I may have been under the influence of morphine, but those words snapped me back into complete consciousness.  He said to follow up with my primary physician, more testing will probably be in order, blah, blah, blah.  But he also said that the kidney stone was a blessing in disguise, because if I didn’t have the CT scan for it, the enlarged lymph nodes wouldn’t have been found.


How can a kidney stone so TINY cause so much freaking pain? 

Yes, that's it in the left bottom of the cup.  Ugh.

For most of my adult life, I’ve assumed that I’m a ticking time bomb for cancer:  it wasn’t a question of “if” but “when.” 

Strike One:  My parents both died of cancer (ovarian and lung). 

Strike Two:  I lived at Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border for 7 years in the shadow of the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station, watching as it spewed forth a noxious yellow haze that settled daily over the town of Page, and always skeptical when officials said it was "safe." 

Navajo Generating Station, outside Page, Arizona

Strike Three:  Lake Powell’s close proximity to contaminated soil and water in southern Utah from nuclear testing in the 1950s.

Strike Four (bonus strike):  Frequent travel through old uranium mining regions in northern Arizona.

Maybe all of these combined can cause lymphoma.  Perhaps none of them do.  But the hows and whys don’t really matter, do they?  The reality is what’s happening now.  And what’s happening is that I have lymphoma.