Gonna change my middle name...

...to "inconclusive."

Yet another scan result (the neck CT of my swollen lymph nodes) has come back as inconclusive; either the doctors are truly unable to tell if they are swollen from inflammation vs. a tumor, or they're blowing smoke until my appointment when I get the real news. Hmm.

Fortunately, I don't have to wait too much longer for an appointment; they've added me on to next Monday's schedule at 8:30 am. G is coming with me, in case there is some sort of bad/negative news.

At this point, I don't think I'll care what the news is just so long as I have an answer.

Oh, BTW -- I was right in my last post about being summarily switched to the New Blogger, so hopefully this won't cause anyone any problems with posting comments. I think you all switched before I did, anyway, so hopefully it won't.

My jumbled thoughts

First of all, this may be where the rubber meets the road, at least as far as my New Blogger resistance is concerned. I think I've reached the end of that rope, and if I want to continue using my personalized Google homepage and Blogger, I'm going to have to make them co-exist. Even though I'm petrified about doing it since my Google stuff is in my real name. Ugh.
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I find it amusing that two of you liked my reference to "Infertility World," even though that wasn't what I typed. I find it more amusing that I *didn't* type it since that's clearly what I meant. *head smack*
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On to the medical stuff. I'm done with my antibiotics. Had my neck CT this morning. Liver doctor called to discuss next steps on Thursday, but called the home phone instead of the cell and despite my leaving two messages with the cell number, I haven't heard back from him yet. I'm still trying to decide whether or not to cancel my next RE appointment.

Oh yeah, that. I need to elaborate a bit. First off, the liver doctor. First of all, my CT/MRI scans were "inconclusive" for whatever the "spots" were near my bile duct. (He did call them spots, although I think he was being rather cautious so as not to worry me. Ha, nice try.) I explained the swollen lymph node to him and the things we were doing there, and he said he wanted to be kept in that loop, since it would be much easier to biopsy the node in my neck than anything in my abdomen, should that be where we're going.

And then he said that he can't recommend that I start any type of fertility treatments until we know what we're dealing with. That even if I don't have lymphoma and all the spots end up being is benign tumors, even those could grow as a result of being on the hormones, and could cause problems if I've already got some liver damage, which we don't know yet.

I know he's right. Everyone's right. "Take care of your health first, it's more important." "You wouldn't want to be pregnant and find out you had a serious illness that you couldn't treat without hurting the baby, would you?" And my favorite: "You're still young."

Ah, the naive have it so easy.
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I was thinking the other day that maybe all of these things that are happening to me are the result of not forwarding on every sickening sweet, sappy or "miraculous" forwarded spam of an email I've ever received, despite being told I had hours to do so.

Yeah, that's it. I apparently don't love Jesus enough, or want to see Jimmy get 4000 emails, or believe that a dancing leprechaun will appear on my monitor, or think about my friends enough to forward them on the same email that they've probably received 20 times this year alone.

Totally it.

Lady-in-waiting

My appointment with the ENT was brief, and the outcome is that my lymph node(s) (we're still not sure if it's one or more at this point) are not big enough to do a needle biopsy, and have not been around long enough to justify a complete removal, yet. The ENT wants to try 10 days of antibiotics, followed by a CT scan to see what's going on, and then make a decision on a biopsy if needed.

So I'm waiting. Again.

I was thinking a lot about how much we in the fertility world wait. There's the two week wait, obviously, followed by a wait for a first appointment if you get a positive, or a wait for the next cycle/treatment/test if you're not so lucky. There's the wait some women go through if they are unsure they're miscarrying, and the wait after a miscarriage to begin trying. I've added on the wait after surgery; the wait post-surgery until it's been "long enough" to warrant a trip back to the doctor since we're not getting pregnant, and now, the wait for a diagnosis on my itching/lymph node/liver issues.

To quote from one of my favorite movies, The Princess Bride, I hate waiting.

In a break from my endless search for answers to my health issues online, I decided to Google the phrase "waiting for diagnosis". As expected, much of what came back deals with waiting for a serious diagnosis and the effects such waiting has on the person waiting. One of the most interesting articles I found was written by a person who'd gone through some form of cancer. It's of particular interest to me since this person also had a lump on their neck, granted, but it also describes the way that waiting for a diagnosis differs from other types of waiting. S/he writes "What is it like to wait when the expected outcome is uncertain?" And this is what ties my current health issues in with my infertility - all I have at this point in both instances is a bunch of uncertainty:

• I don't know whether my liver issues will prevent continuing with fertility treatment;
  
• I don't know whether the lump on my neck could be a sign of lymphoma, the treatment for which could speed up ovarian failure;
  
• I don't know whether I'll ever find a cause for my itching; and
  
• I don't know whether all of this is really nothing, a wild goose chase that's serving to make me worried and depressed for no reason.

In short, all of my uncertainty keeps me in a constant state of worry. I know I need to remain calm about it, to allow things to come at their own pace, to deal with the news, good or bad, as it arrives. Ultimately, I may have to deal with things that I don't like. I may have to put off trying to get pregnant indefinitely. I may have to endure other health treatments that may be invasive or difficult. I may have to change my focus. But I have this need to try to prepare myself in advance. This is why I research and Google and arm myself with info; G doesn't understand it, and I think I've p.o'd more than one of my doctors in the past. But it's who I am and it's how I deal with waiting.

I sometimes think that knowing anything, good or bad, would be better than this.

Briefly...

I had a longer post written but Blogger was being difficult yesterday and I couldn't post it. It's probably better that I don't as it's filled with sarcasm, bitterness, and negative speculation.

The basic jist: I have "at least" two swollen lymph nodes (I now feel at least three, personally) and am being sent for an ultrasound and an ENT consult. ENT is Monday at 8 am, u/s is Wednesday at 7 am. It's likely that I will have one or more of the nodes removed for biopsy, but will have to find out definitively from the ENT.

PCP essentially said "no way" when I asked to be cleared for injectibles, due to the liver issues -- it'll be up to my liver doc (appt Wednesday at 9 am) to say yea or nay on that one.

Whether it will matter is yet to be determined.