It's the end of September when cardiac rehab is finished (or I decide I'm finished with it), so time to start talking about the second bone marrow transplant.
Rachael calls to let me know she'll start scheduling tests, and I ask her if we can start with a PET scan.
Call me paranoid, but it's been about four months since the last radiation treatment, and my back is itchy again. It's itchy in a slightly different place than it has been in the past when I've had Hodgkins, but I'm thinking the cancer is back again.
She says I've earned the right to be paranoid and I know my body, so she'll schedule the PET scan.
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It's set for the hospital off 5300 South in the Salt Lake valley for Friday, October 4 at 9:30 a.m.
It goes really smoothly.
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However, the day after, my stomach really hurts--bad.
I try to deal with it all day, but later that evening, it's getting worse, and I'm starting to feel nauseous. I wonder if it's my gallbladder or something else going wrong.
Dale's still at work, but I finally decide I'd better go to the ER before I do some serious damage to my body from ignoring the pain.
In the ER, I tell the doctor my four ideas for what's causing the pain:
* My gallbladder. (Nope, wrong side.)
* Something to do with radiation treatments. (No, that wouldn't cause this kind of pain so long after treatment.)
* Some effect from stopping steroids without gradually weaning off them. (Probably not because I wasn't taking what's usually thought of as high-dose steroids, which do need to be tapered off gradually. However, there is some merit to my idea.)
* Some hernia or strange other problem. (Not sure.)
He decides to do a CT scan, when I mention to him that I just had a PET/CT scan at an IHC hospital yesterday. He could probably pull up the results and see the area of my abdomen that's hurting.
He asks if I want pain medication, but I refuse. I'm tough. I'm not one of those people that come to the ER seeking pain killers. It's okay.
About two hours later, I acquiesce though and ask for something to help with the pain. It's immediately effective. Why did I wait so long?
And he comes with a copy of the PET results. After skimming them, I announce to Dale, "Okay, so it looks like the Hodgkins is back. This time, it's centered around my trachea. It's really small though. We caught it fast. Maybe two doses of chemo would kill it?"
After running another CT scan (because yesterday's didn't show that area well), the ER doctor figures out that I probably have gastritis from the steroids, tells me to eat an all-liquid diet for 2 days, and sends me home.
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