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Aug. 3rd, 2007 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhd323I love my dad, I really do. However, of all places in the house, he decides he needs to sit in the family room (where I'm sort of stationed since Wednesday) to talk on the phone. Loudly. Now, I'm not really paying attention to the TV, but I also don't care to hear his phone calls. Even the benign ones are annoying. The more interesting ones make my blood pressure rise. I've already made a comment once, but it apparently had no impact. Which is not terribly surprising.
The two of us went to see Bourne Ultimatum this afternoon. Turned out to be a fairly serious test of my crutch skills. And I barely passed.
By the time I got to the car after the movie I was exhausted from the trip. Which makes me feel completely lame. I'm also incredibly sore. My left quad is sore from all of my hopping around the house (since I refuse to use the crutches around here) and my arms are super sore.
*sigh*
Then he gets on the phone on the way home and . . . *grumble* Why in the world my dad insists on continuing to associate with people who regularly screw him over is beyond me. He complains and moans about it and then adopts another loser into his ring of people who stress him out, take his money, and so on and so forth. It's truly absurd and I'll never really understand it. It's better if I don't hear about the stupid situations he gets in, because as I get older I have an increasingly difficult time biting my tongue.
The lovely Sam brought me to the doctor this morning. It definitely helped to talk to Liz about the whole thing. We just sat in her office, drank coffee together, and she showed me my file with lab results from the last several years. She's concluded that I must have a high-risk strain of HPV (lucky me): it's been resistant, persistant, and progressing as opposed to reverting back to normal. My colposcopy results were worse than they were last time by two grades, putting me what they'd consider three steps from cancerous growth. She said it usually takes approximately 10 years for cancer to actually develop so, given my history, I'm still in a really safe zone, which is why it makes sense to act now.
I am obviously not required to get the procedure done, but I'd be foolish not to, if you ask me. Enough is enough. There's still some small probability it will go away on its' own, but I tend to believe that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, which would just suggest that my cervix will continue to aggravate me until I do something to it. It's been four years and if this dramatically increases my chances of reverting back to normal pap smears, then please, do it. She showed me the tools that they use and told me that they have to put a grounding pad under my butt during the procedure, which is a little disconcerting. But, the electrical current through the wires actually cauterizes the area as the tissue is removed, which helps to speed healing. I guess. The tools are just these slim wires in loops and triangles of various sizes on wand/handle things. Once energized, the doctor inserts it into the cervix and rotates it 360 degrees to remove tissue. The size of the tool, then, determines how much is removed.
The unfortunate thing is, given the nature of the cervix, there's no way to see in the canal as it's being done. So the removal is blind, generating no guarantee that the doctor will get all of the diseased cells on the first go-round. After removal, they send the section off to pathology, where they'll look for a clean border. (She actually said I could see it if I wanted to. Then quickly remembered what happened last time I looked at my cervix and suggested that perhaps I avoid doing so. I fully agree.) If there's healthy tissue around the diseased cells, then that's a good sign they got everything. If not . . . well, then potentially no. But, that doesn't mean I'll immediately have to have another LEEP. Thanfully. I'll go back to pap smears first.
Liz, unfortunately, doesn't do them. She actually said that, while she does other surgical procedures in the office, she doesn't particularly like the LEEP procedure so hasn't taken the classes required for it yet. However, another doctor in the office does do them and has for many years now. She said he's really great and she would be most comfortable with him doing the procedure. He actually did my second colposcopy when Liz got trapped on an island somewhere during her vacation due to bad weather. Really nice guy and his assistant is actually one of my mother's best friends going back to middle school. Liz also gave me a prescription for a few pills of Xanax to calm me down beforehand.
I obviously have the option of doing it in Seattle, but there's no way in hell I'm going to attempt to find a doctor to do it out there. I'll be much more comfortable in an office and with doctors I'm already familiar and comfortable with.
Then she'd like to see me around 4 weeks after, which means another visit home. Yet another. Oh how I love traveling across the country to see the gynecologist. Fun fun.
No intercourse or tampons for that entire month.
But, afterwards, there will be a low probability of regrowth. Not as small as I'd like - she said she thinks it's something like 30% - but I'll take it.
Appointment is scheduled for September 11.
The two of us went to see Bourne Ultimatum this afternoon. Turned out to be a fairly serious test of my crutch skills. And I barely passed.
By the time I got to the car after the movie I was exhausted from the trip. Which makes me feel completely lame. I'm also incredibly sore. My left quad is sore from all of my hopping around the house (since I refuse to use the crutches around here) and my arms are super sore.
*sigh*
Then he gets on the phone on the way home and . . . *grumble* Why in the world my dad insists on continuing to associate with people who regularly screw him over is beyond me. He complains and moans about it and then adopts another loser into his ring of people who stress him out, take his money, and so on and so forth. It's truly absurd and I'll never really understand it. It's better if I don't hear about the stupid situations he gets in, because as I get older I have an increasingly difficult time biting my tongue.
The lovely Sam brought me to the doctor this morning. It definitely helped to talk to Liz about the whole thing. We just sat in her office, drank coffee together, and she showed me my file with lab results from the last several years. She's concluded that I must have a high-risk strain of HPV (lucky me): it's been resistant, persistant, and progressing as opposed to reverting back to normal. My colposcopy results were worse than they were last time by two grades, putting me what they'd consider three steps from cancerous growth. She said it usually takes approximately 10 years for cancer to actually develop so, given my history, I'm still in a really safe zone, which is why it makes sense to act now.
I am obviously not required to get the procedure done, but I'd be foolish not to, if you ask me. Enough is enough. There's still some small probability it will go away on its' own, but I tend to believe that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, which would just suggest that my cervix will continue to aggravate me until I do something to it. It's been four years and if this dramatically increases my chances of reverting back to normal pap smears, then please, do it. She showed me the tools that they use and told me that they have to put a grounding pad under my butt during the procedure, which is a little disconcerting. But, the electrical current through the wires actually cauterizes the area as the tissue is removed, which helps to speed healing. I guess. The tools are just these slim wires in loops and triangles of various sizes on wand/handle things. Once energized, the doctor inserts it into the cervix and rotates it 360 degrees to remove tissue. The size of the tool, then, determines how much is removed.
The unfortunate thing is, given the nature of the cervix, there's no way to see in the canal as it's being done. So the removal is blind, generating no guarantee that the doctor will get all of the diseased cells on the first go-round. After removal, they send the section off to pathology, where they'll look for a clean border. (She actually said I could see it if I wanted to. Then quickly remembered what happened last time I looked at my cervix and suggested that perhaps I avoid doing so. I fully agree.) If there's healthy tissue around the diseased cells, then that's a good sign they got everything. If not . . . well, then potentially no. But, that doesn't mean I'll immediately have to have another LEEP. Thanfully. I'll go back to pap smears first.
Liz, unfortunately, doesn't do them. She actually said that, while she does other surgical procedures in the office, she doesn't particularly like the LEEP procedure so hasn't taken the classes required for it yet. However, another doctor in the office does do them and has for many years now. She said he's really great and she would be most comfortable with him doing the procedure. He actually did my second colposcopy when Liz got trapped on an island somewhere during her vacation due to bad weather. Really nice guy and his assistant is actually one of my mother's best friends going back to middle school. Liz also gave me a prescription for a few pills of Xanax to calm me down beforehand.
I obviously have the option of doing it in Seattle, but there's no way in hell I'm going to attempt to find a doctor to do it out there. I'll be much more comfortable in an office and with doctors I'm already familiar and comfortable with.
Then she'd like to see me around 4 weeks after, which means another visit home. Yet another. Oh how I love traveling across the country to see the gynecologist. Fun fun.
No intercourse or tampons for that entire month.
But, afterwards, there will be a low probability of regrowth. Not as small as I'd like - she said she thinks it's something like 30% - but I'll take it.
Appointment is scheduled for September 11.
