well, nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile
It's probably never good when the words spoken by your doctor following his saying the pathologist's report is back are, "It's bad."
My mind sort of blanked a bit when he said that, so I didn't catch the exact terminology he used, but I know leukemia was the last word in the sentence which immediately followed, "It's bad."
I am pretty sure he said slow growth in there, along with it being a remarkable thing it was even discovered because the type of cancer it is presents no symptoms until it is very well developed. And that it ordinarily wouldn't have been caught at all except for my pre-op blood work being randomly selected by the hospital lab for a manual examination used to confirm the calibration of the computer/electronic equipment which reads nearly all the blood submitted.
See, it started when I noticed a bit of pain in my right groin area after a few weeks of heavy lifting. It was the second week of May and I told my wife I thought I had a hernia. I went ahead and scheduled a colonoscopy (routine) because it's time for an annual physical & Dr. Katie told me to get one last year. The morning of that procedure, the preparation for which is somewhat intense, it was confirmed there was a hernia when the bulge in the pelvic area was readily apparent.
So off I went to see Dr. Park, who assured me there was no problem doing the colonoscopy with a herniated patient. He provided me with Dr. Cione's telephone number and said he was good -"I sent my mother-in-law to him for surgergy."
I still thought I would put off the hernia treatment until June because the end of my health insurance plan year is May 31st, it was already the 9th and I didn't see how I could get all this stuff squeezed in before then.
But @ 2:20 a.m. on Monday, the 13th I awoke with incredible pain in my chest that wasn't going away. It was more on the right side than the left, so I didn't THINK it was a heart attack. It also wasn't like other heartburn or esophigial spasms I have had. So we went to the ER.
Heart attack was ruled out, after I aced a stress test.
But I figured I just spent $2k deductible on that one event, so I better get all the other stuff moving. The next day I called Dr. Cione's office and they were surprised to have a consult time available the next morning. So Wednesday the 15th I went to meet with him and although he suggested I ought to address the enlargment on my prostrate (that appointment with Dr. Katie is the day after tomorrow), I told him I didn't want to waste the month of time that was going to take and would rather not have the pain. So we set up hernia surgery for Monday, the 20th (yesterday), they sent me downstairs to the hospital lab for the blood work.
Thursday morning a rather insistent scheduler in his office called me to say they needed the additional blood work done that day or the next. Definitely before the operation.
As Dr. Cione is speaking with me yesterday morning, I asked him about the second blood work. At first he doesn't seem to remember but suddenly it comes back to him.
"You know, I don't think I've ever gotten a call like that, from the lab," he says. "It could be blessing that your's was selected for the additional screening, depending on what they find."
That was before he knew it was "bad."
My mind sort of blanked a bit when he said that, so I didn't catch the exact terminology he used, but I know leukemia was the last word in the sentence which immediately followed, "It's bad."
I am pretty sure he said slow growth in there, along with it being a remarkable thing it was even discovered because the type of cancer it is presents no symptoms until it is very well developed. And that it ordinarily wouldn't have been caught at all except for my pre-op blood work being randomly selected by the hospital lab for a manual examination used to confirm the calibration of the computer/electronic equipment which reads nearly all the blood submitted.
See, it started when I noticed a bit of pain in my right groin area after a few weeks of heavy lifting. It was the second week of May and I told my wife I thought I had a hernia. I went ahead and scheduled a colonoscopy (routine) because it's time for an annual physical & Dr. Katie told me to get one last year. The morning of that procedure, the preparation for which is somewhat intense, it was confirmed there was a hernia when the bulge in the pelvic area was readily apparent.
So off I went to see Dr. Park, who assured me there was no problem doing the colonoscopy with a herniated patient. He provided me with Dr. Cione's telephone number and said he was good -"I sent my mother-in-law to him for surgergy."
I still thought I would put off the hernia treatment until June because the end of my health insurance plan year is May 31st, it was already the 9th and I didn't see how I could get all this stuff squeezed in before then.
But @ 2:20 a.m. on Monday, the 13th I awoke with incredible pain in my chest that wasn't going away. It was more on the right side than the left, so I didn't THINK it was a heart attack. It also wasn't like other heartburn or esophigial spasms I have had. So we went to the ER.
Heart attack was ruled out, after I aced a stress test.
But I figured I just spent $2k deductible on that one event, so I better get all the other stuff moving. The next day I called Dr. Cione's office and they were surprised to have a consult time available the next morning. So Wednesday the 15th I went to meet with him and although he suggested I ought to address the enlargment on my prostrate (that appointment with Dr. Katie is the day after tomorrow), I told him I didn't want to waste the month of time that was going to take and would rather not have the pain. So we set up hernia surgery for Monday, the 20th (yesterday), they sent me downstairs to the hospital lab for the blood work.
Thursday morning a rather insistent scheduler in his office called me to say they needed the additional blood work done that day or the next. Definitely before the operation.
As Dr. Cione is speaking with me yesterday morning, I asked him about the second blood work. At first he doesn't seem to remember but suddenly it comes back to him.
"You know, I don't think I've ever gotten a call like that, from the lab," he says. "It could be blessing that your's was selected for the additional screening, depending on what they find."
That was before he knew it was "bad."
posted by Kurt at 6:47 PM
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