Chapter 24: PET scan results

 


Hey all, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who have reached out to me over the week. I really do appreciate it.

So where did I leave off, the PET scan....

Even though it seemed as though this test was one of the more easier ones, well in terms of actually doing it. There was quite a lot riding on this test in the long run. I feel at this point both myself and the doctors put a lot into this test, in terms of being able to find out what was really going on.

Before I knew it, the test results were on my patient portal, and yet here I was again with the hurry up and wait scenario, seeing as I had no idea what any of it even meant. As much as I wanted to hunt down my oncologist to review the results, I had a minor idea of what they meant, and knew it was better just to wait. Also, seeing as I already told her that I reached out to Dr J about the last results she took what felt like year to review. I was "luckier" this time, and my oncologist was able to get back to me in just a few days.

During the call, my oncologist explained to me as expected, my uterus specifically the endometrium, aka the lining shed during menstration, showed up as "PET avid". Which means, the sucker lit up like the northern lights, during a Santa clause parade in Disneyland at Christmas. Not exactly what one would want, but an accurate depiction none the less. However the good news in all of this? "there was no evidence of uptake in the lymph node". Phew! Meaning the lymph node did not light up so they do not detect any cancer is in the adjacent lymph node. At this point, this meant it was only stage 1.  Long story short, a really good scenario, of a really really sh*tty situation.

So what now? where do we go from here?  Good questions....I was asking myself the same thing.

Seeing as it was only my uterine lining that lit up during the test, they automatically put me on a medication called magestrol acetate. Yep, I cant say it was the most exciting experience. But effective none the less. The purpose of this medication was to basically suppress the cells in the uterine lining from growing so fast, more specially stop them in their tracks. Like a security guard hunting down a teenage mall shopper walking out of Sephora with a $500 Kyle Jenner Lipkit in their jacket. The thing here is, at this point I was willing to do almost anything to get rid of whatever was in my body that wasn't supposed to be there aka the cancer. So I took the medication.😐

I should have known something was off when I went to go fill the prescription as the pharmacist had A LOT of questions, and a few concerned looks for me. Hmmmm.....well....turns out this drug is pretty epic and they usually give it to women with advanced breast cancer. Seeing as I was already in the cancer category, I wasn't too far off in left field for this one.

Common side effects of magestrol acetate, aka Megace include: 

COOL......

😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐😐

I'm glad to say, I didn't have all of these side effects. However, what I can say about this, is the ones that I happened to have were definitely not nearly as fun as one might hope.....πŸ˜’.  Im always down for a good fart joke, but c'mon guys, this was too much even for me. 

Luckily I was on this medication for only 3 months, to be honest though looking back, that was 3 months too long. I am lucky, aside from this cancer crap, to be physically healthy overall. However, it wasn't until my oncologist said something interesting, which kind of took me by surprise, and I ended up doing a little bit of research about his particular medication. Brest feeding women are in no way allowed to use this medication "as it may harm the fetus", and while taking this medication, the person's blood sugars need to be closely monitored, as it may cause diabetes. WTH!? Again, i'm very lucky,  to come out of this with nothing other than the cancer I went in with.

That being said this evil spawn of a drug certainly put me through the wringer the 3 months I was taking it. In the midst of all the h3ll-ish symptoms they have listed above, they also should add "acting like an utter raging b*tch" to the list. No word of a lie, it was a legit problem. I hated everything and everyone, for 3 straight months, period. It was like I had PMS 24/7, my poor husband, really! Its like I was in fight or flight mode 100% of the time, but without the flight mode. I did mention all of these concerns to my oncologist, and it turns out I was "overly symptomatic". Basically the medication was making my body experience the symptoms too intensely and it certainly wasn't working for me in my favour.

Seeing as the long term goal here is to preserve fertility as much as possible. During all this, I know my health team did the best they could to make that happen. So here we were at a crossroads, and time for surgery #1. What my health team wanted to do was to stop the magace medication, and insert an IUD. HALLELUJAH! πŸ™ This way,  the progesterone would not be necessarily travelling throughout my entire body. It would be going directly to my uterine lining and thin it that way. BUT, a big but here......Since my BMI is higher than the suggested level, and I have sleep apnea they could not insert the IUD in the fertility clinic. It no longer was the regular song and dance, in fact, it immediately became  a friggin' broadway production.  Which clearly has been the theme of this while scenario to begin with. I now had to have  the IUD surgically inserted in a hospital operating room. 🀦 FML.

However, since they were going in there, they wanted to do a dilation and curettage procedure, aka a D&C, and remove any possible polyps. H3ll since you're already cooking eggs, why not make pancakes and French toast too... know what I mean? For those of you who are not familiar with this procedure its actually where they go in and  do some spring cleaning if you will. They go in and scrape out a good amount of the uterine lining and then send it off to the pathology lab to be examined and tested. Luckily ill be fully under and not feel a thing, yay!


Until next Monday!

To be continued.......

 


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