Dr. Ley's office called this morning. They've decided to wait until I see the doctor at Duke University before going back in. This was nice as it saves me a $30 copay, but disappointing because I thought we might step forward with solving this mess. Oh, well.
I feel much better than I did then, and am now working...YAY!!! But have been feeling a bit off again and last night woke up in a full sweat in the middle of the night. I wish it was because I was hot and bothered, but that wasn't the case. Just a sheet soaker experience that made me feel gross. I also ached all weekend. All my joints, especially my knees, and some muscle aches, too. Enough I say, but all in good time.
Well, here's to crossing my fingers to good results on Oct. 5th at Duke.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Outstanding News
I just received a call from my endo doc's nurse and she said all my blood tests came back normal. Never has there been such a sweet word as normal. She said that my calcitonin level is now back within the normal range, the first time it's been tested that way. Music to my ears and I think it made her weekend when I told her it made mine.
Big question of the day...With such a small nodule to begin with (0.2"), if it was cancerous, could the biopsy (four samples from that one nodule) have removed enough of the tissue to make a difference with the calcitonin level?
In any regard, it's nice to see the level go down, have my potassium back in normal range, and have my aldolase go back down. I may even go jog tomorrow :)
Big question of the day...With such a small nodule to begin with (0.2"), if it was cancerous, could the biopsy (four samples from that one nodule) have removed enough of the tissue to make a difference with the calcitonin level?
In any regard, it's nice to see the level go down, have my potassium back in normal range, and have my aldolase go back down. I may even go jog tomorrow :)
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Surprise call from the Doc
It turned out to be my endocrinology doc wanted to know if the Duke doc had called me yet. Huh?
Turned out he had an entire packet of my health history all together and had placed a call to the last stop doc they all turn to at Duke. Their office was to call me to make an appointment to go see him. Uh, I don't remember discussing this with him, actually I am sure we didn't, but am so glad he went ahead and did. I've been waiting for my file to go to that one person who will have an aHA moment when they see what's going on. Or at least go aHA, I know what other tests to run.
I also asked him if we were going to discuss my thyroid removal when I go back in 3 weeks. He said that he wants to see what the Duke doc says, but will probably recommend we take out the half of the thyroid with the suspicous nodule and go from there. If the pathology report comes back negative, I'll still have half my thyroid. If it comes back papillary cancer, we did the right thing and I'll have half my thyroid, and if it comes back medullary, we'll probably go back and remove the entire thing plus some nodules, etc. At this point I don't want to deal with another biopsy since the nodule is so small and didn't release enough material the first time. I would rather err on the side of caution, with half my thyroid intact. Besides, it will also help us figure out if my slightly elevated calcitonin levels was just because my baseline is higher than the normal population or if there was reason for concern. I read somewhere that medullary thyroid cancer can (can, not that it will) metastesize as early as a calcitonin level of 10, and mine is still less than that.
I guess my next question will be, if this nodule is benign or not, could it be the reason everything is just wacky? The doc stated at the start that it could be all or nothing. He said that it was possible that with the vascular nature of the nodule that it could be throwing off lots of weird signals to my body, or that it may not be causing any of them and we luckily found it by chance.
I started my 2.5 mg of prednisone this morning. I don't know if it's affecting anything because I'm so hyped up over the possibility of getting to work from home. I'm sure it will take a few days.
On another note, it is actually cool today so I'm going to go for a real walk later, not just a saunter round the block. And will do my weinie weights first. Wish me luck!
Turned out he had an entire packet of my health history all together and had placed a call to the last stop doc they all turn to at Duke. Their office was to call me to make an appointment to go see him. Uh, I don't remember discussing this with him, actually I am sure we didn't, but am so glad he went ahead and did. I've been waiting for my file to go to that one person who will have an aHA moment when they see what's going on. Or at least go aHA, I know what other tests to run.
I also asked him if we were going to discuss my thyroid removal when I go back in 3 weeks. He said that he wants to see what the Duke doc says, but will probably recommend we take out the half of the thyroid with the suspicous nodule and go from there. If the pathology report comes back negative, I'll still have half my thyroid. If it comes back papillary cancer, we did the right thing and I'll have half my thyroid, and if it comes back medullary, we'll probably go back and remove the entire thing plus some nodules, etc. At this point I don't want to deal with another biopsy since the nodule is so small and didn't release enough material the first time. I would rather err on the side of caution, with half my thyroid intact. Besides, it will also help us figure out if my slightly elevated calcitonin levels was just because my baseline is higher than the normal population or if there was reason for concern. I read somewhere that medullary thyroid cancer can (can, not that it will) metastesize as early as a calcitonin level of 10, and mine is still less than that.
I guess my next question will be, if this nodule is benign or not, could it be the reason everything is just wacky? The doc stated at the start that it could be all or nothing. He said that it was possible that with the vascular nature of the nodule that it could be throwing off lots of weird signals to my body, or that it may not be causing any of them and we luckily found it by chance.
I started my 2.5 mg of prednisone this morning. I don't know if it's affecting anything because I'm so hyped up over the possibility of getting to work from home. I'm sure it will take a few days.
On another note, it is actually cool today so I'm going to go for a real walk later, not just a saunter round the block. And will do my weinie weights first. Wish me luck!
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