Once when a friend of mine and I were trying to schedule a date for our next luncheon, I glanced at her pocket calendar. It was packed full of penciled-in engagements. When I expressed envy over her busy social calendar, she shook her head and laughed. "They're all doctor appointments," she said. "If I didn't have these appointments, I'd have no social life at all."
Now that's just sad. But true for so many of us retirees.
I am in the process of follow-up doctor appointments concerning my most recent visit to the gynecologist. And I hate it. I don't necessarily dread the results of these appointments and tests. I dread the time spent in that medical environment. That special smell encountered when you enter a medical facility. The out-of-date magazines you're almost afraid to touch because someone with symptoms far worse than yours may have sneezed on them. The looks on the faces of others in the waiting room.
I took my friend Nancy to some of her chemotherapy appointments. The waiting room overflowed with people in various stages of the disease. Some had hair. Some wore cute hats and scarves. The "society type" ladies often wore heavy makeup and slightly crooked wigs. Some were chatty, but most were eerily quiet. The look in their eyes was universal, dull. No light. No joy. The look of acceptance, fear, exhaustion, and worry. Being sick hurts, both physically and mentally.
I don't know what is in store for me. My gynecologist left me feeling hopeful. I'm one of the lucky ones with good health insurance. So, I will have all these tests. I will pencil-in my appointments. I will be poked and prodded. I will take care of whatever ailment is plaguing my old body.
And no matter what the diagnosis/ prognosis, I will take that Thanksgiving cruise with my family this coming November.
Getting old is not for the weak.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Monday, January 26, 2015
I Really Hope I'm a Hypochondriac
I've reached an age where the expression, As long as you have your health everything else is chopped liver, has become my mantra. I remember listening to my parents' friends discussing their health woes and shaking my head at such boring conversations. Now, my friends and I constantly discuss our health. Many of us have pre-existing conditions that could have left us uninsurable in the days before Obamacare. My friends have diabetes, MS, heart issues, back pains, and cancer. Some of my friends are no longer here because of cancer. I worry about cancer because I have growths on my thyroid that could become cancerous. I'm regularly checked, biopsied, and ultrasounded. So far, so good.
Maybe.
Yesterday I went to a clinic because I had all the symptoms of a urinary tract infection. They can easily get out of control, so I wanted to nip it in the bud. The doctor was perplexed when the urine test came back with no indication of a UTI. Then he did a series of blood tests, concerned that the pain in my lower right abdomen was a cry for help from my appendix. Nope. All clear. He gave me three days of antibiotics in case a UTI really was starting up and sent me on my merry way, suggesting I follow up with my doctor if I'm not feeling better in a few days.
Of course, I followed up with the internet and worked myself into a frenzy last night. A sleep losing, anxiety filled frenzy. Because, these symptoms of mine are associated with the most difficult to diagnose cancer for women, ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer in its earliest stages is rarely diagnosed because the symptoms are ones that women experience for many benign reasons. But, I focused on two that made me panic immediately. In laymen's terms, one of them is a feeling of being full before one has eaten enough to actually be full. I've been experiencing this phenomena for months. Sometimes I am in the middle of a delicious meal that I absolutely have to stop eating because to take one more bite would cause me to vomit. After a dinner in Baltimore, I couldn't get into my friend Nancy's car right away because I was on the verge of leaving my calamari on the parking lot macadam. I just assumed I was eating too much, the food was too rich, etc. etc. Maybe those are the reasons, but this is something I had not experienced before this past year. And it's weird. You have to admit, it's weird. I was also chilled by the symptom described as bloating. My abdomen has changed shape this past year. It's hard to explain, but I have not gained any weight (in fact, the recent weigh in revealed I'd lost a few pounds), yet my gut is rounder and bigger than it used to be. I've just blown this off figuring my old weight was settling differently on my bones.
That is exactly why the early stages of ovarian cancer are missed. The bodies of older women betray us in so many ways that one more change is taken in stride.
In this day and age of instant internet information, we often make the mistake of diagnosing ourselves according to what WebMD says we might have. It's a stupid thing to do, and in most cases, internet research only results in one being one's own quack doctor. The scary thought is, what if I'm right? I diagnosed my dog's Cushing's disease from what I read on the internet. What if I'm right again?
Why not me? At my age, one in six women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I can think of five friends right off the bat and not one of them has ovarian cancer. Hopefully, I don't either. I can't stand the thought of doing this to my nieces. I can't get sick and put them through it. I can't. I just can't.
I go to the gyno later this week. I am hoping for the best. I'm praying that my self-absorbed, drama queen, doomsday, over-reactive attitude will eventually embarrass me. In fact, I'm looking forward to being branded a hypochondriac.
I'll keep you posted.
Maybe.
Yesterday I went to a clinic because I had all the symptoms of a urinary tract infection. They can easily get out of control, so I wanted to nip it in the bud. The doctor was perplexed when the urine test came back with no indication of a UTI. Then he did a series of blood tests, concerned that the pain in my lower right abdomen was a cry for help from my appendix. Nope. All clear. He gave me three days of antibiotics in case a UTI really was starting up and sent me on my merry way, suggesting I follow up with my doctor if I'm not feeling better in a few days.
Of course, I followed up with the internet and worked myself into a frenzy last night. A sleep losing, anxiety filled frenzy. Because, these symptoms of mine are associated with the most difficult to diagnose cancer for women, ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer in its earliest stages is rarely diagnosed because the symptoms are ones that women experience for many benign reasons. But, I focused on two that made me panic immediately. In laymen's terms, one of them is a feeling of being full before one has eaten enough to actually be full. I've been experiencing this phenomena for months. Sometimes I am in the middle of a delicious meal that I absolutely have to stop eating because to take one more bite would cause me to vomit. After a dinner in Baltimore, I couldn't get into my friend Nancy's car right away because I was on the verge of leaving my calamari on the parking lot macadam. I just assumed I was eating too much, the food was too rich, etc. etc. Maybe those are the reasons, but this is something I had not experienced before this past year. And it's weird. You have to admit, it's weird. I was also chilled by the symptom described as bloating. My abdomen has changed shape this past year. It's hard to explain, but I have not gained any weight (in fact, the recent weigh in revealed I'd lost a few pounds), yet my gut is rounder and bigger than it used to be. I've just blown this off figuring my old weight was settling differently on my bones.
That is exactly why the early stages of ovarian cancer are missed. The bodies of older women betray us in so many ways that one more change is taken in stride.
In this day and age of instant internet information, we often make the mistake of diagnosing ourselves according to what WebMD says we might have. It's a stupid thing to do, and in most cases, internet research only results in one being one's own quack doctor. The scary thought is, what if I'm right? I diagnosed my dog's Cushing's disease from what I read on the internet. What if I'm right again?
Why not me? At my age, one in six women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I can think of five friends right off the bat and not one of them has ovarian cancer. Hopefully, I don't either. I can't stand the thought of doing this to my nieces. I can't get sick and put them through it. I can't. I just can't.
I go to the gyno later this week. I am hoping for the best. I'm praying that my self-absorbed, drama queen, doomsday, over-reactive attitude will eventually embarrass me. In fact, I'm looking forward to being branded a hypochondriac.
I'll keep you posted.
Monday, January 5, 2015
Life Can Turn on a Dime
Life can turn on a dime. After sixty-one years, I have witnessed the reality of this cliche as I am sure many of you have, too. A fall on the ice rendered me unable to walk or work for the next few months. An open door led to the loss of a beloved family pet. One phone call and a loved one was lost forever. Life was going along just fine, and then....
I am terrified of car accidents. I don't think I'm as good a driver as I once was. Ask my friend Dee who screamed and stopped me from plowing into a car waiting to make a left turn. I also don't think drivers are as good as they credit themselves with being. Multi-tasking behind the wheel has made the roads increasingly unsafe. Simple mistakes can be disasters. Recently, I swerved out of the path of a car driving on the wrong side of the road in the early evening. Scary as hell. It was a mistake that luckily did not result in tragedy. Others have not been so lucky.
I couldn't even read the latest Lisa Scottoline book that opened with a hit-and-run car accident that left a woman dead and a man and son consumed with guilt. The opening of that book filled me with such anxiety that I had to put it aside. It felt too real, too horrible, and all too likely to happen to anyone who operates a car.That's why a recent car accident that has touched my life in an indirect way has filled my thoughts lately.
If you're local, you know that an Episcopal bishop hit a bicycle rider and killed him. The accident happened in the late afternoon. Complete details have not been released, charges have not been filed, but the media of public opinion has gone wild. The grief of the bicycling community has been agonizingly expressed, and much of the speculation paints the woman as a monster. She did what could not be forgotten or forgiven, she left the scene of the crime.
Many at my church know this woman and care deeply about her. In fact, Sunday's sermon dealt with this catastrophe and our feelings about it. We prayed for the deceased and his family, but we also prayed earnestly for our church's friend. She did not mean to hurt anybody. But she did, and her first response was to run.
I had trouble with that. How could she leave? How could she not stay and pray over him? Call 911? Do something. Anything. And then one of the parishioners made it very clear to me. She said, in her quiet and gentle voice, that we all like to think we would do the right thing. But in the shock of the moment, can we really be sure what we'd do?
I once thought I was sure. But if I am truthful, I realize that I am not so confident I'd do the right thing. Over a year ago, my sister's oven caught on fire. I'd been trained in emergencies. I should know what to do in case of fire. What did I do? I got myself out of the house. Myself. Granted, if one of the kids had not been outside, maybe I'd have sprung into action. But we left the guinea pigs and birds in the house. Animal activists could judge us brutally for doing that. However, in the panic of the moment, we just weren't thinking straight. And I didn't respond the "right" way.
Life can turn on a dime. Like a roller coaster, we can be riding high and in the blink of an eye, drop to the deepest depths. My heart goes out to the people whose lives recently took that painful drop. May the bicycle rider be in peace. May his family and friends weather this tragedy and heal. And may God also hold the Episcopal priest in His embrace. None of us are perfect. None of us are exempt from the possibility of our own lives turning on that proverbial dime.
I am terrified of car accidents. I don't think I'm as good a driver as I once was. Ask my friend Dee who screamed and stopped me from plowing into a car waiting to make a left turn. I also don't think drivers are as good as they credit themselves with being. Multi-tasking behind the wheel has made the roads increasingly unsafe. Simple mistakes can be disasters. Recently, I swerved out of the path of a car driving on the wrong side of the road in the early evening. Scary as hell. It was a mistake that luckily did not result in tragedy. Others have not been so lucky.
I couldn't even read the latest Lisa Scottoline book that opened with a hit-and-run car accident that left a woman dead and a man and son consumed with guilt. The opening of that book filled me with such anxiety that I had to put it aside. It felt too real, too horrible, and all too likely to happen to anyone who operates a car.That's why a recent car accident that has touched my life in an indirect way has filled my thoughts lately.
If you're local, you know that an Episcopal bishop hit a bicycle rider and killed him. The accident happened in the late afternoon. Complete details have not been released, charges have not been filed, but the media of public opinion has gone wild. The grief of the bicycling community has been agonizingly expressed, and much of the speculation paints the woman as a monster. She did what could not be forgotten or forgiven, she left the scene of the crime.
Many at my church know this woman and care deeply about her. In fact, Sunday's sermon dealt with this catastrophe and our feelings about it. We prayed for the deceased and his family, but we also prayed earnestly for our church's friend. She did not mean to hurt anybody. But she did, and her first response was to run.
I had trouble with that. How could she leave? How could she not stay and pray over him? Call 911? Do something. Anything. And then one of the parishioners made it very clear to me. She said, in her quiet and gentle voice, that we all like to think we would do the right thing. But in the shock of the moment, can we really be sure what we'd do?
I once thought I was sure. But if I am truthful, I realize that I am not so confident I'd do the right thing. Over a year ago, my sister's oven caught on fire. I'd been trained in emergencies. I should know what to do in case of fire. What did I do? I got myself out of the house. Myself. Granted, if one of the kids had not been outside, maybe I'd have sprung into action. But we left the guinea pigs and birds in the house. Animal activists could judge us brutally for doing that. However, in the panic of the moment, we just weren't thinking straight. And I didn't respond the "right" way.
Life can turn on a dime. Like a roller coaster, we can be riding high and in the blink of an eye, drop to the deepest depths. My heart goes out to the people whose lives recently took that painful drop. May the bicycle rider be in peace. May his family and friends weather this tragedy and heal. And may God also hold the Episcopal priest in His embrace. None of us are perfect. None of us are exempt from the possibility of our own lives turning on that proverbial dime.
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