Dare I say that they’ve found out what’s wrong with me? Okay I’ll do it…..guess what’s wrong with me? Nothing! That’s right….NOTHING!
The respiratory specialist I’ve been seeing who keeps finding new things on new scans was worried when they detected another nodule further up in my right lung, just under my heart. He decided to send me for a PET scan and Thursday last week was the day!
Stueykins and I had an early start, neither of us slept well the night before, we had that age old problem where you know you’ve got to get up earlier than normal and you are worried about sleeping past the alarm so you just don’t fall asleep until the last minute – only to have to get up!
It meant that we had to travel to Brisbane and then get another train a couple of stops out west to go to one of three hospitals that have a PET scanner. Just in case you ever come across this situation, there ARE three in Brisbane but each will tell you they are the only ones with one! It was my investigative nose that located three!
Anyway, I went to Southern X-ray at the Wesley Hospital in Auchenflower. Nice facilities so I suppose it wasn’t a wasted trip but with Queensland rail constantly changing their route times, we managed to get to Brisbane far too early, and arrived at the hospital with an hour to kill. I decided to let them know I was there at least, and no sooner had I done that, they called me through – that’s got to be a first! Arrive early, get in early!
Once in there, I was to be injected with a radioactive glucose tracer – fun! Like I haven’t had enough radiation lately with how many CT scans etc? I wasn’t allowed to move, I had to lay there for over an hour without moving and to make things harder for me, it was on my back. My back doesn’t like that and quite often it can also lead to a coughing fit. No matter, I figured that if I just relaxed and dozed, it would be easy. In theory, having little to no sleep the night before, and being wrapped in a blanket in a cool place with the lights turned off, you’d think I’d have gone to sleep without a hitch – hah! Yeah in an ideal world! It would seem that the room I was in was like Grand Central Station, outside the room is where everyone wanted to stop and chat and clunk and make all kinds of noises. After a while though I managed to drift off.
I was a good girl and “made like a statue”, I hadn’t budged at all, I was still pinching the cotton ball from where she took a blood glucose test from my finger.
Next I was woken up and taken to the scanner for half an hour of scanning. You’ve got to love some people though, I asked the girl doing the scan “so, how does this actually work?” I was hoping for the adults version of how this scan worked etc but when she started with “well, you’re radioactive at the moment!” my eyes glazed over! Does this mean if I get stroppy I will turn into the Incredible Hulk?
Before I knew it, I was out and we were back at Roma St Station in Brisbane awaiting our train ride home! I asked if they could send a copy of the results to my GP so I could see him, rather than panic for nothing for 3 weeks until my specialist returned from his vacation. No problem, I was told he’d have them the next day. I phoned and got an appointment with him.
The next day my sister took me, another sleepless night but though I was mentally prepared for bad news, I hoped for the best news. And we got it! There is no cancer, there is nothing really “wrong” that’s causing all these symptoms. What it looks like has happened is at some point in recent times I’ve had a bad lung infection of some sort and this is most likely scarring left from it (the nodules) but they will still probably keep an eye on them and do a couple more scans in the next 3 or 6 months to make sure nothing has changed.
Relief? That’s an understatement….I floated through the rest of the day in bliss!!!
So this infection that I’ve had that I didn’t know about at the time I was having it (depending on when it was) might be what has caused the breathing issues and the coughing etc. The pains in my chest though I found out are all muscle strain around the area, the worst pain I feel is probably from me pulling a muscle fairly regularly! I can live with that!
I will still see my specialist, I might need to have some pulmonary rehabilitation to help me get back to 100% but it’s great because now, every possible part of my body has been tested and I’ve come out with a liver disease and a past lung infection (that I never noticed – unless it’s from 4 years ago).
Great news isn’t it! THE BEST NEWS EVER!!!! Hopefully that puts me back on track to my health getting better! :)
Tags: Brisbane, Health Issues, scans
You may have noticed that I’m joining in this year with the Leukaemia Foundation’s “WORLD’S GREATEST SHAVE” this year. In fact, my hair has less than 4 weeks to go before it’s shaved off. Why am I doing this? I was going to get involved in it last year but unfortunately life got in the way.
My sister suggested I do it this year and I thought it was a brilliant idea. The point behind the “World’s Greatest Shave” is to raise awareness of Leukaemia, Lymphomas, Myeloma and other blood disorders as well as raise funds to help the Leukaemia Foundation to help support those going through these wretched diseases and their families.
Click the banner to sponsor me in the World’s Greatest Shave!
I’m always a supporter of great causes and this one seemed to fit in well for me right now. I have a liver disease and part of my symptoms is that I overheat quite easily and one of the problems aiding that overheating problem is my hair. I’ve been wearing it short now for just over a year due to the overheating issue. It’s a shame that my hair isn’t longer for the shave but we have to work with what we’ve got.
The most interesting thing that I’ve noted when I mention to people that I’m doing the shave is that they say “Oh, your hair is short though!” Yes, it’s short but let’s just put this in perspective for a moment.
- I’m a woman
- Women are vain about their hair usually
- I don’t have a disease or treatment that could mean the loss of my hair
So, bearing those things in mind, and the fact that I’ve ALWAYS been very vain about my hair (for as long as I can remember) and being a woman and not “needing” to shave my hair off – I have the choice here – I figured it’s still a HUGE thing! It should never come down to length!
The World’s Greatest Shave gives us options though, we can shave (clipper) OR colour our hair. The colouring side of things is using coloured hair spray which will wash out. I could take that option but I have “chosen” to stare my own vanity in the eye and say “right….hair, it’s time to go for a GOOD CAUSE….for people who don’t get the choice!”
The true brave people in this story are the ones facing these diseases, they are my inspiration. Thankfully for technology and advances in medicine more of these brave people survive but sadly too many still die. My hair can suffer for a while out of respect of the true fighters!
Free Hugs in Surfers Paradise
How do the Free Hugs fit into this picture? It’s quite simple really……
I was getting some good, early sponsorship from friends far and wide but like most things, it dipped. I issued a challenge to some of my friends – come up with a dare or challenge that was within the law and pledge an amount, if I did it, they would pay up but if I didn’t succeed, I had to pay their pledged amount up to $100.
The Challenge
One of my dearest friends and the best man at our wedding issued a challenge for me! We named it “Wendishness in Paradise“.
He knew that I love the Free Hugs Campaign and had a t-shirt with “Free Hugs” on it. He’d seen a photo of me being silly with an upturned mop head on my head, wearing his silly hat and my own heart sunglasses. The challenge was laid down – Wear my FREE HUGS t-shirt in Surfers Paradise (Cavill Mall is where it took place mostly), and my mop head, the hat, the sunglasses and get 50 hugs from individuals (group hugs counted as one). If I could do that, he would donate $100, if I failed, I had to pay up instead! We made up a proper wig from two mop heads, I painted my fingernails different colours and wore a pair of brightly coloured pyjama pants with hearts on them too just to really finish the look!
Well, I don’t shy away from a challenge, I never have. Why not embarrass myself in the meantime! The date was set for Saturday 6th Feb, I had my hug crew of my sister (the photographer) and Stueykins who was holding up a sign to let people know what we were doing and why, as well as a donation tin provided by the Leukaemia Foundation on the Gold Coast.
How did it go? Great! We met some absolutely wonderful people on Saturday, locals and visitors alike, people who were working and some really colourful characters. There were hugs with kids, one very special little girl in fact made our day.
An observation that we made though was that we could have tripled our hugs if people weren’t so shy. In this era where people are strangers, it was easy to see many more wanted to jump in but were too afraid for whatever reason. To those who wanted to….we understand – but next time, share the love! We are ALL THE SAME!!
To view the photos from the day – CLICK HERE to go to my Flickr account and to see a montage I put together through OneTrueMedia and then uploaded to Youtube….see below!
It’s been a huge week for me starting last Saturday with my “Free Hugs” sponsored challenge to raise awareness and funds for the Leukaemia Foundation’s “World’s Greatest Shave”. It was a LOT of fun to do, though physically draining. It was a true challenge though, in more ways than one and I will post an update on that over the weekend.
Wednesday was the Leukamia Foundation’s Gold Coast Launch of the World’s Greatest Shave, held at the Courthouse Hotel in Southport, it was a fun time and we got some photos. I was one of the “guinea pigs” and got my hair coloured while there. If you saw this story on the Channel Nine news, you saw me getting my hair coloured all kinds of weird and wonderful colours. I was sad I couldn’t stay for the trivia night but I had to be up nice and early the next morning for more tests.
Today I went to Brisbane for a PET scan, realising I should have stayed the night before for the trivia, I had a sluggish day due to that ever present insomnia problem! I wonder if I glow in the dark now from the many scans and radioactive injection I had today? Nobody come near me with a Geiger counter – I don’t want to know!
It’s going to take 3 weeks before I can see my specialist who is heading off for a holiday. Talk about bad timing, but that can’t be helped, the poor guy is entitled to a break. In the meantime I will have the results through my GP Friday lunchtime and I’m hoping for some good news.
All of these things will be updated either tomorrow or over the weekend because there are so many fun things to share and interesting observations made along the way.
Please stay tuned and I’ll have some silliness, important updates and fun added very soon!
for tomorrow!
Tags: free hugs, leukaemia foundation, scans, shave, world's greatest shave
WORLD’S GREATEST SHAVE
I’m participating in the Leukaemia Foundation’s “WORLD’S GREATEST SHAVE” on Saturday March 13th at Robina Town Centre. In the meantime I’m trying to encourage people to sponsor me by issuing me with dares or challenges (within the boundaries of the law).
Check out the Facebook Event Page for the details – Wendishness in Paradise
On Saturday Feb 6 at Cavill Mall in Surfers Paradise, I will be doing such a challenge. Wearing a wig made from a mop head, a silly hat, coloured fingernails and pants, and hot pink heart sunglasses AND a ‘Free Hugs’ T-shirt. For my potential sponsor to pay up, I have to receive hugs from 50 individual people. I urge anyone on the Gold Coast, if you’ve got nothing to do, come and support me doing this in Cavill Mall on Saturday between 11:30am – 3:30pm to meet the challenge. Come and get your Free Hug with the mophead! There is a chance there will be media coverage of the event, fingers crossed on that one! Anything that highlights this great cause and brings attention to the World’s Greatest Shave is a bonus!
In the meantime, if you want to sponsor me to shave my hair off, click on the link here - SPONSOR ME – to go to the Leukaemia Foundation’s site and make a donation with your credit or debit card, my personal goal is $2,300. Please share this around, retweet, replurk, share on other social networking sites!
I will be going from this below:
To something along the lines of this below:
Tags: hair, leukaemia foundation, shave, world's greatest shave
Again my blogging, like other things is falling by the wayside but with all the appointments and tests and doctor’s visits etc. I’m usually too exhausted to do anything where I need to think! My sleeping habits are all over the place still, and the health issues STILL unresolved. Welcome to my Medical Mystery Tour!
After the lung function test, I saw the respiratory specialist. He pointed out that the emphysema is really quite mild (good) and that nodule isn’t anything to worry too much over just now but should be monitored. He noted on the scans that there was some slightly weird shading and couldn’t work out what it was – possibility that it was the end of an infection and something to look into later. After discussing symptoms and everything else he wondered if I might have Pulmonary Hypertension, Sleep Apnoea, a problem with my heart or Chronic Bronchitis. He decided more tests were needed to get a closer look at things!
He turns his attention to the relationship between my heart and lungs and decides he wants a closer look at my heart as well to try and rule out or diagnose something. So I had to have a high resolution CT of the chest, a pulmonary angiogram (which requires the use of a vein for the contrast – and we all know the story of my wonderfully co-operative veins), and an echocardiogram. I decided that I wanted to rule out other things too so got a pap smear and today I had a mammogram (I just don’t want other things lurking about unnoticed).
Off I head for the first two tests to be done at the same place and same time. The high resolution CT scan was to be done with me on my back and on my front to see if anything was affected by gravity. But first they wanted to catch my vein ready for the contrast. It wasn’t going to play ball – veins out on strike! I told her “look just put it in my hand, I know it will hurt but I need this done!” She said she’d rather not and got the senior radiology doctor in to try my other arm, no luck for him either. I guess you can’t get blood out of a stone, that’s how I felt. They decided to do the high res scan and then get me back in a few days later for the other one and try the veins again. They DID succeed the second time, but it took copious amounts of water to drink to really hydrate me and a heated wheat pack on my arm.
A visit to the doctor showed that the pap smear was normal (I’ve had two previous bad results that required further action, nice to rule this out). All tests done, so Monday I was back at the specialist to find out where things stood. He ruled everything out that he was looking for. But as is the way with every test I’ve had so far….he found something NEW!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Stop it!!!!
They have discovered a second “thing” or nodule, this time in my right lung and right underneath my heart. Ideally he would do a needle biopsy on that BUT (isn’t there always a but) because of its position, it’s right among all the veins or arteries or whatever they are called that supply the blood to the lungs from the heart and it’s TOO RISKY!
Wonderful!! Just absolutely great! NOT!
So, I have two options, they can do a bronchoscopy and get a tube down there and do what they do, maybe look at it and take a biopsy OR I could have a PET scan. As the PET scan was the cheaper option on the day, I chose that! I’m yet to have it. Tomorrow I see my GP and will discuss it with him, this specialist, once he was getting closer to needing procedures done to me, was meant to get me into the public health system but he’s not doing that, so I feel that I need some advice on what to do next.
The worrying thing with the PET scan though is my veins, now I could apply the same strategy as I did for the successful angiogram but here is the problem. I have to travel just over an hour to get to the place that does this, by train. How am I to keep my veins warm over such a period of time? Stuart suggested we take a thermos with boiling water and a hot water bottle, yes that would work but we need to carry my cumbersome collection of scans too and the other various things to make the trip more comfortable.
I’m just at a stage where I’m totally fed up with all these tests, I’m losing faith in this specialist who is supposed to be very reputable. Yeah he charges like a wounded bull! He’s starting to scratch his head now, I asked him “what could this other nodule be?” his answer was, “it may just be an enlarged lymph node or something else”. Ah…something else, now there’s a medical term you don’t hear too often! It’s a really irresponsible thing to say though isn’t it? Does he think he’s protecting me from potentially bad news? Does he not think that by saying “something else” our minds are not going to start worrying about the worst possible scenario?
Anyway, all this is wearing me down, so my blogging and online time will be intermittent until we start getting somewhere and I gain some energy back. Please keep positive thoughts coming my way, I can do with all the help I can get right now!
So, sit back and enjoy The Beatles version of Medical Mystery Tour….even the words almost fit with the new name I’ve given it!
Tags: Health Issues, heart, lungs
This year I am participating in the Leukaemia Foundation’s “World’s Greatest Shave”. It’s such a worthy cause and of course Lymphoma hasn’t been ruled out for me yet, but regardless I am doing this.
Between March 11-13 all over Australia, people will be sitting down ready to have their hair shaved or temporarily coloured to raise much needed funds and awareness. What a great thing to participate in!
I was going to do it last year but didn’t get around to it and my sister reminded me so I signed up yesterday and already have had five generous sponsors who so far have donated $267 which is a fantastic start. And to all of them, I’m gobsmacked and truly grateful, and to the two who remain anonymous, thank you also. And Shelley…whoa – you LEGEND! 
When I got the good news that I didn’t have lung cancer, I decided to celebrate, I went and changed my hair, got my nails done and my first pedicure. My hair has always been my crowning glory….if my hair is looking shabby, I feel shabby. I rarely take a photo of myself without my hair near to perfect. Now it’s going, going, gone!
Here’s a couple of pics of how it currently looks
I will leave it to grow now, it grows very fast, so in two months there will be more to shave off!
I am hoping that I can get plenty of sponsors who will help push me to my goal or further which will really egg me on to shave my head. You can view my profile here: Sponsor Wendishness in World’s Greatest Shave and I would dearly love if you could share this with the people you know. It’s a great cause, and too many people fall victim to leukaemia, lymphomas and other blood disorders so please get behind me on this one if you can. You can donate on my page using the sponsor me button or if you’d prefer, you can send a cheque/check to me and I will send you back a receipt.
Tags: hair, world's greatest shave
Firstly, to all the Fun Monday players, apologies for my few weeks away without any notice, my health took a BIG dive (you can catch up below if you’d like), but I’m back in business for now at least. I’ve missed playing but my mind has been so distracted. Secondly…Welcome to 2010 (a little late) but I wish you all a safe and happy new year.
Now, onto this week’s assignment. Jill @ The Adventures of Lil’ Mouse has set a challenge that seems like a bit of a chore j/k.
She asks: What is your least favorite chore? Vacuum get you down? Dust bunnies saying, “oh yeah, you and what army?” Is there a chore that you neglect doing it until the absolute last minute when guests arrive? Do you just pray they won’t look ‘there’? Are you going green with your cleaning? Top tips? If you have any ideas for anyone on Monday, post them in their comment box, because we all know that we LOVE comments!
Where do I start on this one?
I’ve never minded doing chores, especially when I’m in my own place, in fact I’ve been accused of being a little OCD at times (not with everything though).
Since I fell on a flight of stairs and my back has been getting worse, it’s been much harder to do a lot of things and now I need help. Now my health is going through more trials and tribulations and I overheat quickly, have some trouble with breathing, not to mention energy levels, it’s even harder. I hardly do a thing!
But in my own house, there isn’t anything that really bothers me, cleaning the loo, the bathroom, ironing, washing.
Actually, I just remembered something I do NOT like doing….anything in the garden, it’s not about getting dirty or anything. It’s the nasty bugs we get here in Australia, poisonous spiders and occasional snakes…you get my drift! But I haven’t got a green thumb anyway.
Here I have three other people who can help with the chores though….but that’s usually through a fair bit of nagging!
Click on Jill’s link above and go see what everyone else’s thoughts are on chores, chores, chores!
Tags: chores, fun monday
