#75 The Big H Hotel

For those of you keeping up on the blogs, a few weeks ago an incidental node was found in my right lung measuring 5.8mm. When this was discovered all my Doctors agreed that it needed to be closely followed and monitored.

I had a CT scan of my chest booked for Nov 17 at which point they would tell me if the nodule grew or shrunk and if there were any other changes in my lungs.

In the meantime I've been having a hard time with it. Waiting to find out if you have cancer again isn't easy. The fact that I've had odd pains behind my rib cage wasn't helping to distract me either.

Yesterday I was at Whole Foods and I felt a very strong pain, stabbing pain. Immediately called my Dr who sent me to the Emergency Room.

We've all been to the Emerg, it takes forever to be seen and sometimes you feel like you're being forgotten. I spent the better part of the day from 11-7 on a stretcher on morphine in a hallway. Finally I was wheeled in for a chest xray and a CT scan.

I was told that I needed to wait to review the results and that they were sending my oncologist to report them and that maybe I'd like a private room.

Immediately I started freaking out. It's such bad news that they need me out of the hallway. I spent the next 30 minutes awfulizing. It was horrendous.

The Doctor came in and told me that they were admitting me for the night and luckily they could rule out a pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lung) but gave me clot busting drugs anyway. They said the respiratory team would need to talk to me about the CT scan in the morning as some "changes" were seen on the CT of my right lung. I asked what kind of changes and they told me that the team would discuss with me tomorrow but for tonight I needed to get settled and they wheeled me up to the Oncology floor at the hospital.

I layed there all night sweating and thinking of my kids, I didn't get to even tell them I wouldn't be home. I had to facetime them to tell them I loved them and not to worry just some tests that's all.

Early this morning the respirologist's resident came and asked me all kinds of questions and told me that they saw some "ground glass opacities" in my upper right lung. She said this could be caused by radiation, infection or metastisis. I asked her how we would know....she said that often a scope is done. They put you out and pass a camera down into your lungs and take a sample and then send it away for testing. Obviously, I was there alone, again, and started crying. I don't want fucking lung cancer. And I don't want to wait to find out either.

She then told me she would be meeting with the Attending (supervisory) doctor and they would come back to talk to me bout the CT and what her observations were about it as well.

Just then Jason came to deliver my green juice and I burst into tears and she had to explain it all to him. I pulled myself together, he gave me lots of encouragments and then he had to go back to work and I had to wait for the Attending.

An hour passed and the attending appeared. She told me that she didn't think it was cancer. She said that she believed it to be inflammation and irritation from radiation, but she'd like to still do the scope just to see if it's possible that there are any malignant cells mixed in with the inflammation she sees. She said it will happen next week but for now she really doesn't think it's cancer. She says the 5mm nodule that was seen was actually a bigger part of the complex inflammation and the rest of my lungs looked clear. It was a relief for sure.

The odd thing is when you get good news with the wait and see....it's a relief but it's also not a full "congrats you'll never ever have cancer". I realized in that instant I'll never hear that. I still have to wait for the scope.

The hospitalist or internalist, came in to talk to me about contacting my oncologist because this pain could be coming from my bones and we may need to bump up the bone scan to see if there is any cancer there. They can't just send me home without answers.

So here I sit. On morphine, looking out the window, wondering what the hell just happened over the last 24 hours. I'll be staying another night in hospital, hopefully just one more and they'll find some answers....

This is the shit with cancer, it can't just be simple, it's always waiting and wondering.

Today while I sit here, I'm going to be hopeful about the future tests and outcomes.

Sometimes all you can do is wait.

At least because of Covid I got a private room.