Scanned

As I expected once I got the call Friday from the doctor's office to come in on Monday, the results of the CT scan were not good.  Apparently I have hatched a growth 20 cm in diameter at its widest spot and this growth is pushing on a few organs.  Now I have an explanation for my overwhelming fatigue some days, the trouble I was having breathing when I went upstairs, and of course all the stomach problems I have had since the beginning of our vacation in late September.  And  we have moved to the pain portion of our program as well as my looking like I am about 6 months pregnant.  Unlike a pregnancy, my monster growth is causing me chronic low level pain with spikes of sharp pain from time to time.

Now I have to have surgery but have hit the first roadblock.  The doctors my GI MD recommended would not even schedule an appointment until he sends them the CT scan and a referral.  Then I have to go see someone who will tell me the same thing presumably my GI MD said (you need surgery STAT) and then we will try to get an OR booked at Cedars Sinai.  I had my last surgery at St. Johns in Santa Monica but the practice to which I was referred supposedly specializes in removing these types of growths, which can get tricky depending on where the tentacles of the growth have gone.  So I will succumb to the recommendation of a specialist even if I have to go to the huge hospital farther away from home.  Both my son and husband have recently done time in Cedars and both thought it was a good hospital.  Of course, my friend with cancer has spent some time there too in the last few years.

Odds are the monster is benign.  But until they do the surgery and the biopsy I will not know.  So more anxiety in store for me during this holiday season.