Thursday, November 13, 2014

NOT cancer!!

Hallelujah, it’s NOT cancer!!!!  My official diagnosis is: Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV).  What the heck is that? (I didn’t know either)

It means they think that part of my inner ear is off, the part that helps tell the body what is balanced, and so when upright, my body thinks it’s falling, causing my dizziness and headache. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BPPV

Those little circles in the picture get stuck down in the posterior canal or in the cochlea and aren’t floating like they should be.  It could go away on its own or with a couple of sessions of physical therapy to move them back into their proper space.  I meet with my oncologist on Wednesday to see if my symptoms are better and to talk about my hip.  I might be able to do physical therapy to deal with both.

The most common form of breast cancer loves to return in bones, but I actually had a less common form; my type is much more common among young women but less common in the general populous of breast cancer patients.  The kind that I had is much more likely to come back in the brain than in the bones so it’s such a relief that it hasn’t!!  And, that means it’s even more likely that my hip pain is a side effect of chemo than a side effect of cancer having returned.  It’s very common for young cancer patients to develop swelling in the joints, called bursitis.  When we meet with my onc. on Wednesday we’ll talk about a decision matrix for my hip pain.  Even if it is breast cancer in my bones, it would be waaaaayyy slower growing than breast cancer in the brain so it’s not as emergent to get a scan to rule out cancer as the cause of my pain and expose my poor body to more radiation.

Thanks everyone for waiting with me and praying for me.  I am so grateful for your support.  Please pray for my continued recovery.  Feeling like you’re going to pass out with an almost constant headache sucks and I look forward to feeling better!  Trumps my hip pain any day.  I’m also grateful for the constant reminders in my life not to take a single day for granted.  Pain or no pain, I have a choice to face my day with thankfulness and gratitude for my many blessings.  So many of my “problems” are first world problems: when Josh’s job ends will we need to move?;  “only” having one bathroom for six people; owning a vehicle with high millage; how to pay for some of the best medical care in the world.  Aren’t we blessed?

I’m going to spend my weekend looking for blessings in every moment.  Can you find a hundred by
Monday?  I think it won’t be that hard for me to.

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