Yes, that old, classic song title usually ends with the word "summer". However, with the below-zero temperatures that have been happening in Ashcroft (and, unfortunately, inside my school building!) over the last week, November is more fitting -- for more reasons than one.
On Friday, I received a call from my Kamloops oncologist, Dr. P. with the results of my abdominal CT. Thankfully, all looked good with my liver lesion. It is still presenting exactly the same way it has on the other three CT's, with the radiologist sticking to his earlier predictions that it appears to be a cavernous hemangioma, or blood vessel malformation. According to Nurse Maureen (AKA ... Doctor Lewis), hemangiomas are extremely common in the average human being. The annoying part of the phone call came after that good news.
Apparently, the bottom 1/4 of my lungs that could be seen on the CT showed that my lungs appeared "hazy". Dr. P. drilled me about colds, coughs, shortness of breath, amount of energy, etc. etc. Haziness is most commonly associated with infection and/or pneumonia. Well, I have endured two of my usual "back-to-school" colds this fall, just feeling close to 100% a few days ago. However, during neither of these colds did I cough much or feel like I had chest congestion. Cautious Dr. P. wanted to follow up with a full chest x-ray.
As luck would have it, yesterday was a Professional Development Day in our school district, so I didn't have to plan for a substitute teacher. After listening to a fabulous speaker in the morning, I headed off to Kamloops at lunch. The most frustrating part of the day was trying to find a parking spot in the hugely-inadequate hospital parkade. Thank Heaven, they're in the process of "paving paradise to put up a parking lot" (Big Yellow Taxi). Actually, it's an enormous shame that the grass, trees, and flowers at the front of the hospital were ripped out to construct a concrete parkade, but increased parking capacity is highly necessary. It definitely took 10 times longer to find a parking spot than it did to get the x-ray.
Now, the waiting game again ...
I made the mistake of googling "hazy lungs" this morning. WHY did I do that??? There are some very logical explanations, but also some very scary ones. I'm desperately trying to NOT let my brain go to any of the scary places unnecessarily. I will be tremendously relieved to get Dr. P.'s call that all is well, or that I need a simple antibiotic to clear up the remnants of a slight infection.
I'll keep you posted.
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