So, it’s that time of year when I try to cram all my yearly checkups into one month. I try to get them all in in January, since that’s my birthday month, and supposedly it’ll be easier for me to remember. My gynecological visit kind of bled (ha! ha!) into February, but once that’s over, I’ll be set for another year.
Oh actually, I won’t. I still have the mammogram to go through. They’ll make that appointment for me at my GYN appointment. Did I mention that last year after my mammogram they told me there were some differences from the previous year and I had to go back for another mammogram? I’m sure I didn’t mention it. I knew it would turn out to be nothing because I’d had a breast lift since my previous mammogram and was sure that was what was causing the differences. I got to go through another GODDAMN mammogram, and oh those things are just SUCH a joy.
On a side note, if you have the long, loose, floppy boobs, let me tell you here and now that mammograms with those long, loose, floppy boobs are 63,000 percent less painful than if you have firm ones. The floppy ones are easier to move around and position and such.
So I had the second mammogram and then they wanted me to stay for an ultrasound, and I was ever so pleased to do that. I’m pretty sure there’s not an inch of my body that hasn’t been ultrasounded at this point. Maybe my eyes. Do they do eyeball ultrasounds? So I’m used to it, and the only thing that stops me from dozing off is the fear that I’ll start snoring, and also I don’t want them to have to wake me up to turn over or move my arm or whatever, because how fun would that be for them, to have to poke me awake to change positions?
Medical procedures where there’s nothing being sliced off or needles being stuck in my body don’t phase me at all. I dozed off during an MRI several years ago and they had to wake me up to ask me to stop moving.
ANYway. So one of the yearly appointments is with Dr. Liver, ie my gastroenterologist who is 5 days older than me and who diagnosed me with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis. Fuck off, spell check. Sclerosing Cholangitis is correctly spelled. Anyway, he diagnosed me with PSC in 2006 and I still don’t believe I have it, but you know. WHATEVS. All I have to do is go see him for three minutes once a year, have some blood drawn, and have an abdominal ultrasound so they can make sure my liver isn’t misbehaving.
This time when I saw him, he asked if I was still taking the medication (I reminded him that I wasn’t, since we’d decided I’d go off it last year because studies showed that the meds are USELESS) and then he asked when I’d had my last colonoscopy, and I bellowed “WHY ARE YOU STILL ASKING ME THESE QUESTIONS WHEN YOU HAVE MY ENTIRE MEDICAL HISTORY AT YOUR FINGERTIPS ON THAT LAPTOP.”
Okay, no I didn’t. I told him I thought it had been two years since I had the colonoscopy and everything was fine then. He frowned and said “I don’t remember what the protocol is for patients with PSC regarding colonoscopies. Is it every year?”
And I said “Well, no. Didn’t you read the latest study? Dr… Rob..erta, um… McAnderson published a paper that one colonoscopy per lifetime is plenty!”
He did not seem impressed with my medical knowledge.
“YOU should write that paper!” I suggested.
Still not impressed. He jotted a note to himself, and we moved on.
So I lived in fear that he’d call me up and say I had to have a colonoscopy and y’all, DO NOT WANT. Last time I was terrified that I’d be under sedation and I’d blurt out that he looks like the reporter Muppet, and he’d be terribly offended (though to be honest, I don’t think he offends that easily). This year I was concerned that I’d end up singing “My colon brings all the probes to my ass” or some other horrific ditty.
I didn’t hear anything, so I went and had my abdominal ultrasound, and it seemed to take a long time. So I assumed that my blood work had come back with tumor markers showing, uh, tumors (PSC leads to cancer of the bile ducts in some percentage of cases, so they test for tumor markers every year) and he’d called the ultrasound tech and said “ACT NATURAL, but get all up in her bile duct and send me pics!” and I figured I was probably dying of bile duct cancer.
So then Monday he called and said all the tests came back just fine, and there were no changes on my ultrasound, that hemangioma hadn’t changed, come back next year, bye! I said thanks and loveyoubye, and then I hung up and was like “Wait, the what and the what now?” So I looked up hemangioma, and apparently I have a spot on my liver that’s nothing to worry about. And he seemed to KNOW about it already, since there’d been no change since last year, but I swear that I didn’t know about this. Except… did I? I DON’T KNOW.
But apparently there’s nothing to worry about, so I won’t worry. And hey! He said nothing about another colonoscopy, so there’s that.
I just need to get past the GYN visit and mammogram in February, and then I don’t have to go through any of this medical shit again for another year, thankyajesus.
On Saturday, Fred and I went into town to get lunch, and as we were headed home, Fred said “Huh.”
“What?” I said.
“That sign back there said ‘A Cat Alone.’ Did you see it?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t. I wonder if it’s a new cat rescue. That’s kind of an odd name.”
We drove in silence for a few minutes, and a thought came to me.
“You’re sure it said ‘A Cat Alone’?”
“Pretty sure,” he said.
“Could it have said… ‘A Cut Above’?”
He thought for a moment. “I don’t think… well, maybe.”
Whereupon I laughed ’til I cried.
Got my hairs did. Don’t expect to ever see this particular ‘do again; Fred was not a fan of it, and I couldn’t make my hair that flat and straight if I had a zillion dollars and a million hair styling doohickeys.
Previously
2012: Two things of note requiring the cleaning of the Dyson.
2011: It was a slipper. No wonder it wouldn’t purr.
2010: Update on Gus & Mike (now Topher & Dorian)
2009: No entry.
2008: The Annoying of the Poo, a step-by-step instructional guide.
2007: I’d sell all the kitties into kitty slavery for an iPhone.
2006: “Y’all shut UP. I don’t hear you complaining when you run around FARTING on everyone.”
2005: Letters.
2004: No entry.
2003: I swear, I have no control over my body sometimes.
2002: The shithole on Goddard Street.
2001: Lucky for her I’ve calmed down to a growling grumpiness, or it wouldn’t be a very good time to be the spud.
2000: We’re a pathetic lot, aren’t we?
