I’m nervous.

I’m not generally a nervous person. I’m generally hard to scare, with spiders, bees, and scorpions being exceptions. Mentally, I’m fantastic. I’m stable, more stable than I’ve been in a long long time. Both the shrink-docs have said it’s the best they’ve ever seen me. Nice. It’s a great thing. Haven’t been hospitalized since last August with no signs of having to be hospitalized psychiatrically again. Time to do a dance, time to get on with life.

But I think my body hates me.

Symptoms started way back in May. Way more tired than usual, sweating much more than usual (before it got hot, so it wasn’t the temperature change), headaches, fevers that’d come and go, unexplained bruising, and general feeling like crap. Stuff’s only gotten worse since then, not better. There’ve been no major med changes, no lifestyle changes, nothing different. ‘Cept the physical stuff. So, I’m all, “The hell?!” Finally saw the doc. He did blood tests, a urine tests, chest x-ray. Lab says everything is all normal. Cool.

But the symptoms don’t go away. They get worse. I ignored it, figuring it’d get better. Then I got itchy. And not your “random tickle itch” or your mosquito bite itch or your “just put on a wool sweater itch”, but itching. Serious, deep in the skin or something itching. All in random spots with no explanation. And spots, too. “Spots?” you say? Mmm. Exactly that. They aren’t zits, they aren’t generall itchy, and it’s not eczema. They’re raised red spots. In totally random areas, too. On my shin, the side of my leg, the side of my chest, on the inside of my elbow. The tiredness gets worse. Since I wasn’t terribly comfortable with my current PCP at the time, I switched and got an appointment with a “new” doc (the doc I had before she switched practices and I stayed at the old practice with a new doc). She found some swelling in the front of my neck. Requested my chart from my old doc so she could read it and figure out where to go next. We get to play the “rule-out” game! Whee!

That was…almost three weeks ago now. I called my old doc’s office the other day. Not only had they not sent out my chart, but they hadn’t even opened the mail in order to read the request to send my chart. I call the new doc’s office and they tell the doc, who then calls me. She’s ordering for me to get a CAT scan of my chest, abdomen, and pelvis. She has to make sure it isn’t Hodgkin’s.

You know, there’s something that’s really fucking creepy to hear when your doctor says Hodgkins. Over and over. And ordering tests to make sure it isn’t that. And not like it’s just whatever-bloodwork, but a whole damn CAT scan. The kind where you have to drink that nasty-ass contrast. The kind where your HMO says “Why the hell are you ordering this?” Incidentally, she also ordered a 24 hour urine test.

I didn’t know those existed, much less what they are. She said to me, “Now, you’re going to go to the lab, and they’ll give you a bucket…”

“A bucket!?”

…my doctor laughed at me. Well, more like the shock and curiosity in my nearly-outraged sounding voice. Yes. This test means you pee in a bucket for 24 hours straight. Well, at least a bucket I can aim towards much better than one of those little damn cups. Anyway, doc said that the urine test is a long-shot to see if something chemical is wrong, and we might as we do it anyway.

Sure. Because I enjoy peeing in a bucket…and carrying a bucket o’ wee into the lab.

Yesterday, the nurse called me with the day and time of my CAT scan (ass-early, in case you’re wondering). I also get another chest x-ray.

So I’m nervous. Intellectually, I know that this is just the first on the list of shit to rule out. But it’s hard to ignore symptoms that are really starting to interfere with your life. Watching that kind of impact, feeling shittier and shittier, wanting to know what’s wrong so it can be fixed, and then having your doc say things like “Hodgkins” and “lymphoma” and asking you things like “Is there a history of cancer in your family?” and it not being the first appointment with them ever. And being told by people “Well, Hodgkins has a good rate for treatment, like 90% of people survive.” Wonderful. I better not have it.

My psychiatrist asked me today, “So, um, how do you feel about this?”

After I made a comment about him actually asking me a shrink-like question, I told him, “Right now, I’m nervous. But if I have lymphoma, I will be Very Pissed.”

Yes, you can verbalize capitalized letters.

Categories: distracted