Maybe I should call this "Lisa's Kvetching Blog"

In 2009, the year in which everything seemed to get all wiggy (for lack of a more descriptive term) in the form of life-changing news about my bodily condition, it seemed the diagnoses would keep coming:

•  Obscenely high mercury levels? Check.
• Thyroid cancer? Of course.
• Life-threatening hypocalcemia as a result of the thyroidectomy? Sure.
• Esophageal spasming that felt like a heart attack? Come right in!
• Mysterious pre-cancerous growth in my small intestine? You betcha.

When the diagnoses started piling up, all within a few months of one another, I told myself, "Let's just get through this season and then we'll feel better." I told myself, "Aren't we lucky that we're finding this now, so we don't have to deal with this later? We'll get all the treatment over with and then we'll sail through our thirties." 

This was not my first indication that I like to lie to myself.

Since that time, I learned of a few more medical oddities here and there. Oh, and I broke my shoulder pretty seriously and got lucky enough to take in a bunch of radioactive x-rays... I got some more of that delicious radiation during a barium swallow... and yet more after a fall on my head. (Heck, I don't even have a thyroid to absorb that shit, right? I kid, I kid. When I had the head x-ray, the guy didn't even put a thyroid guard on me; he actually seemed pretty annoyed that I suggested it.)

Anyway, I digress. That last paragraph's worth of digression was just meant to say that, over the year or so after my surgery, a few diagnoses came and went, but I kept telling myself that the big summer of diagnoses, the summer of 2009, was all over, and from here on out, I would be a healthier me. 

In that vein, I recently started seeing a proactive oncologist as part of this quest (basically, someone who doesn't want patients to have cancer, and works with them to avoid recurrences). My oncologist took a pretty thorough medical history (Memo to self: WRITE a medical history and then HAND IT to the doctors at the beginning of each appointment. STAPLE it to their damn questionnaires that take 15 minutes and don't capture anything. Hmmm, I bet other people have thought of this before, people who aren't even professional writers. Well, why didn't they suggest it, then? Bastards.), and the item she felt needed most attention, of those listed above and several others, was the duodenal adenoma.

Off I went to her recommended G.I. doctor, who called me a "walking medical textbook," because of the medical history I'm sure she was sorry she'd asked for. I rattled off issue after issue as she sat taking notes. I am sure she doubted whether she'd see her next appointment.

She sent me for some tests, two of which I just had earlier this week, an endoscopy and a colonoscopy. Well, actually, she did the tests herself. The first results available to me are the ones she saw immediately: a 12-mm (I think) antral, gastric ulcer with heaped-up edges (that even sounds yucky), and a medium-sized duodenal polyp, which she attempted to remove in full. (The doctor who found this the last time had told me he removed it... either that was a lie, or this is a new adenoma; given the overall mediocrity of that doctor in general, and my desire to NOT be sprouting rare polyps in my small intestine, I'm going to say it was a lie.)

Now I'm waiting for my pathology reports, and trying to avoid the trap of feeling like I did back when I got all of those concurrent diagnoses, of endlessly waiting for the next shoe to drop in an endless supply of shoes. This seems such a reactive stance to take for someone who relishes being alive, and yet, there's so little I feel I can proactively do. Again, I am starting to feel as if a code to my body exists, but nobody has it... and yes, I recognize the defeatist tone in that statement.  And I'm trying to avoid the pity-party that I tend to want to have for myself as I await diagnoses (although pity parties with wine and oysters are really fun - thanks, Jim!).

So, yeah, not much on the thyroid front to report, really. As I mentioned - or if I didn't - the tests this past February came out okay. I will, of course, keep you posted here in this blog, originally for that purpose, regarding anything of note related to my thyroid.  I'll also let you know the test results, when I know them, from this most recent battery of tests. If you're still reading, I'd love it if you'd please think cancer-free thoughts for me!