September 11, 2015

well. do I have cancer?

     There is a common axiom of prioritizing what matters most during your training. It is infinitely wise its brevity. Eat, sleep, shower. In that order, depending on the person. Me? I eat on the way home in the car so that gives me one less thing to prioritize. So where does one's health fall into this scheme? Traditionally, residents take horrible care of their health during training. For me, I have multiple health issues so those get triaged as to what is the most important at the time. Pain.
     So I went to a pain management specialist to receive spinal injections in an attempt to reduce pain. I did actually go and get the bone marrow biopsy done so why no results? It undid some of the pain relief I received from the spinal injections which then impacts sleep. Eventually, I just ran out of sleep. I could tell from my blood counts at the time of the bone marrow that cancer was becoming less and less likely.
     Plus, I figure if I had something ominous, my oncology doc would've called me. I bumped into them getting out of an elevator while they were getting in. Not enough time to discuss all the subtleties and nuances of a diagnosis and their face did not show any sign of concern. Plus, we need to discuss that if it wasn't cancer that altered my blood so that it leaked from my skin with simple pressure, what in the world was it? And to be honest, I don't have the physical or emotional energy to start another workup with yet another specialist. So I will wait for my appointment at the end of September with the oncologist fairly confident I don't have cancer. So, next month I'll get the ball rolling on the next specialist work up. So do I habe cancer? I hope not, but the final answer will be a couple of weeks waiting and I'm fine with that.

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