An Upside to Scanxiety
Having two different scans on a regular 3 month rotation, I've started to get used to them. The kind of scanxiety I used to have the first year has been replaced with a more low-grade tension. But this week I had an abdominal MRI that took me back to the old days.
This MRI was a follow-up from one in February that indicated an abnormality in the tail of the pancreas. Anything having to do with the pancreas has me immediately tense. My grandpa died quickly and painfully from pancreatic cancer when I was 16 and that has imprinted on me. Additionally, the pancreas does a lot more than most people are aware of. It's famous for insulin production and the failure to produce insulin known as diabetes, but it also produces other digestive enzymes. Pancreatitis happens when the amylis and lipase, responsible for digesting carbs and fats respectively, go hog wild. As I wrote about last fall, it hurts a lot. I started getting the very distinctive pains again last week. This made me very worried about my MRI.
The extra half hour in the waiting room didn't necessarily help, nor did the fact that my results weren't available until my doctor called and said she needed them because the patient was sitting right here. So it was a big relief when the nurse came in with the paper that said it was all clear.
As much as I dislike the emotional roller coaster scans like this put me on, in a way I'm kinda lucky to have these scans to remind me of how time-limited happily ever after really is. I'm sometimes finding myself slipping back into life as usual and losing the sense of urgency and zest for life that came with active cancer. Scares like this suck, but at least they keep me on my toes.
because I was having pain they ran the enzyme tests. These test take several hours and didn't result until 7:30 last night. On the one hand I was glad as they couldn't influence my delivery order. I might have re-thought my Hawaiian pizza with chipotle ranch dipping sauce had I known my amylis is double the top of range and my lipase is six times the limit. It was a really good pizza. Sure, it hurt going down and hours later, but almost every food does this. Not eating doesn't help. I haven't eaten anything today and my stomach is throwing a giant tantrum. I am at the point that I'd rather eat something tasty enough to make it worth the pain.
I've had to generalize this to all areas of life, not just food. While the drugs I've been prescribed do a lot to dull and dampen the alarms going off constantly in various parts of my body, there is never a point where I'm totally pain free except when I go into an adrenal crisis, which is not a great solution. So Since everything hurts, pain can't be a deciding factor when I choose what to do though I just might take it into consideration in how I choose to do things.
Sometime today or tomorrow, my oncologist will see my enzyme numbers and pass them along to my GI doctor and they will talk. They will try to find a non-steroid based way to fix this. If they can't, I really don't know what I'll do. I would rather just suck it up than go through another round of prednisone. I am sure you all are just as tired of reading my prednisone complaints as I am of writing them. Also while it reduced my numbers, it never got them back into the normal range. Meanwhile, I'm going to have an amazing chef prepared Mexican inspired food and wine pairing. I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it. I am going to deeply and consciously take in and savor every delicious moment.