I guess I'll go ahead and update here in case anyone is still reading this blog. :)
I had my lung biopsy on January 24. They treat it like surgery so nothing to eat after midnight the night before. This was the worst part! Jeff's mom came in to help out with the kids, arriving on Wednesday. Thursday Jeff and I left for the hospital. The procedure itself was relatively painless. I got some versed and fentanyl (for pain and to not remember what happened). I remember getting on the table facedown, then them giving me the medicine, me getting really sleepy and them waking me up to tell me it was over. I vaguely remember them waking me up to take some deep breaths, but I never even saw a doctor. I got back to the recovery room and was in a little bit of pain when I would take a deep breath, so I got some pain medicine for that. They took an initial chest x ray to look for a pneumothorax, which is the main side effect of this biopsy. Thankfully, I didn't have one! Jeff came and sat next to me during my recovery. I slept a lot since I was still pretty drowsy from the anesthesia. I had to wait 3 hours till I could so another chest x ray to make sure everything was still ok and they wouldn't let me eat or drink anything till then. This was worse than having a baby! At least I could have ice chips during labor and eat after I had the baby. I had the x ray and it was clear again so I could go home. Yay! I was starving by then so we stopped and got something to eat on the way home. I slept off and on the rest of the afternoon, but by 7:00pm I had a massive headache (due to not being able to eat for so long). I can only take tylenol or aspirin for pain now, since chemo damages your kidneys (just recently found that out. Thanks for the info 5 years later, doc!) Took the tylenol, which made me nauseous, so I went to bed. Woke up around 2 with my head still pounding. More tylenol, more upset stomach. :( I was able to keep some graham crackers down and a cereal bar so I nibbled on that throughout the night. By morning I felt much better but still really tired. I ate some breakfast then went back to sleep till almost noon. After that I was fine. So the whole biopsy part was no big deal. It was recovering from the not eating that took awhile to recover from. Go figure. We were told to call the clinic on Wednesday for the results. So imagine our surprise when the phone rings at 9:15 pm on Monday night and it's my doc on the other end of the line. The connection was horrible, but we managed to understand her say that she couldn't wait to tell us the good news, it was NOT TUMOR! We were overcome with happiness! Such a relief! They still weren't exactly sure what it was, they just knew it wasn't sarcoma. That's all I cared about anyway. I was starting to get really frustrated with this "spot" they found. I have been clear since 2009 and why it would all of a sudden come back baffled me. I have been eating a certain way and taking supplements and doing things that I just knew was keeping the cancer away, so it didn't make any logical sense why it would all of a sudden come back like this. Plus, I had been sick all of November and December so infection/inflammation made sense. My doctor was pretty convinced it was back from what the ct scan showed and so far she's been right. So I think she was very surprised it wasn't tumor. Goes to show they don't know everything from looking at those scans. So now I have my follow up ct scan in March sometime and hopefully I will get back to my schedule of scans every 4 months. We are still waiting on the official core biopsy results, but one report I got says it's inflammation. I think they cultured it and we'll see what grows out. I'll update once I get that information. Infection/inflammation is much easier to deal with than cancer. I appreciate all the prayers and thoughts from everyone. I truly believe that plays a part in this whole process as much as the physical things.
I had my lung biopsy on January 24. They treat it like surgery so nothing to eat after midnight the night before. This was the worst part! Jeff's mom came in to help out with the kids, arriving on Wednesday. Thursday Jeff and I left for the hospital. The procedure itself was relatively painless. I got some versed and fentanyl (for pain and to not remember what happened). I remember getting on the table facedown, then them giving me the medicine, me getting really sleepy and them waking me up to tell me it was over. I vaguely remember them waking me up to take some deep breaths, but I never even saw a doctor. I got back to the recovery room and was in a little bit of pain when I would take a deep breath, so I got some pain medicine for that. They took an initial chest x ray to look for a pneumothorax, which is the main side effect of this biopsy. Thankfully, I didn't have one! Jeff came and sat next to me during my recovery. I slept a lot since I was still pretty drowsy from the anesthesia. I had to wait 3 hours till I could so another chest x ray to make sure everything was still ok and they wouldn't let me eat or drink anything till then. This was worse than having a baby! At least I could have ice chips during labor and eat after I had the baby. I had the x ray and it was clear again so I could go home. Yay! I was starving by then so we stopped and got something to eat on the way home. I slept off and on the rest of the afternoon, but by 7:00pm I had a massive headache (due to not being able to eat for so long). I can only take tylenol or aspirin for pain now, since chemo damages your kidneys (just recently found that out. Thanks for the info 5 years later, doc!) Took the tylenol, which made me nauseous, so I went to bed. Woke up around 2 with my head still pounding. More tylenol, more upset stomach. :( I was able to keep some graham crackers down and a cereal bar so I nibbled on that throughout the night. By morning I felt much better but still really tired. I ate some breakfast then went back to sleep till almost noon. After that I was fine. So the whole biopsy part was no big deal. It was recovering from the not eating that took awhile to recover from. Go figure. We were told to call the clinic on Wednesday for the results. So imagine our surprise when the phone rings at 9:15 pm on Monday night and it's my doc on the other end of the line. The connection was horrible, but we managed to understand her say that she couldn't wait to tell us the good news, it was NOT TUMOR! We were overcome with happiness! Such a relief! They still weren't exactly sure what it was, they just knew it wasn't sarcoma. That's all I cared about anyway. I was starting to get really frustrated with this "spot" they found. I have been clear since 2009 and why it would all of a sudden come back baffled me. I have been eating a certain way and taking supplements and doing things that I just knew was keeping the cancer away, so it didn't make any logical sense why it would all of a sudden come back like this. Plus, I had been sick all of November and December so infection/inflammation made sense. My doctor was pretty convinced it was back from what the ct scan showed and so far she's been right. So I think she was very surprised it wasn't tumor. Goes to show they don't know everything from looking at those scans. So now I have my follow up ct scan in March sometime and hopefully I will get back to my schedule of scans every 4 months. We are still waiting on the official core biopsy results, but one report I got says it's inflammation. I think they cultured it and we'll see what grows out. I'll update once I get that information. Infection/inflammation is much easier to deal with than cancer. I appreciate all the prayers and thoughts from everyone. I truly believe that plays a part in this whole process as much as the physical things.
