Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Echos of Last Year

In response to my last post, Jeff commented, "A common thread in these dreams is the idea that you've got a medical issue that part of you knows needs to be checked out but some how you ended up not doing it. I wonder if you've got anxiety, perhaps related to the cancer, that you're not having as much medical care as you should."

"Oh," I thought, dismissively. "That's a pretty good theory, but actually I've had a lot of check-ups recently and they've all been in the clear." If anything, that would have been last year, when I had a lump I could feel but which didn't show up in initial testing and which no one really thought was anything to worry about. It did occur to me that the check-ups themselves were maybe triggering the dreams--maybe they were dredging up memories of last year. Anyway, whatever the case, I feel that I am in good hands and that I'm being well-monitored.

But . . . today I got the official report back from a medical exam I had last week. It says, "Your recent imaging exam . . . showed an area that we believe to be benign (not a concern). However, you should have a follow-up to confirm that this area does not change."

What? Not again. At least it (whatever "it" is) showed up this time. And the follow up appointment was scheduled for me and isn't until mid-January. So I guess they really aren't all that worried. But they weren't before. They thought it was benign before. I kind of don't care if it is benign. I just don't want anymore "areas of concern." I want to be able to get away with not having chemo, and I want the cancer never to come back, and . . . well, yeah. That's pretty much it.

3 comments:

Tina said...

January? NO Way would I leave anything benign or not until January. And they have been wrong before.
I also pushed and pushed when they said it was "nothing" to be concerned about - my nothing resulted in 3 lumpectomies, chemo and radiation.
And now 5 years later, my mammo showed a "change in density" but "nothing to be concerned about" - let's just do an MRI to be safe... here we go again.
We have to be our own medical advocates - in charge of our health - no one else will do it for us - but just for a day, I'd like a break :)

Annelise said...

This is a blow. I'd sure ask some questions and not just let this wait (although I have had similar things a couple of times). Praying about this.

jeff said...

Wow. I'll be deeply in prayer for you around this.

There's a lot of research and thought about the mind-body-spirit connection, especially around the topic of cancer. Frankly, it seems to me that a lot of it is new age crap. However, I do believe that our bodies know things our minds don't. And it's no secret that the American Medical industry is all about profit at the expense of health... Even if it wasn't for the dreams I'd very much agree with Tina and Annelise.