My week so far...

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Let me just start this little story by saying, I’m fine. Or at least I’m sure I will be. =) I had a bit of an interesting week, and it’s not over just yet I guess…but for sure things look better today than they did yesterday.

How’s that for a cryptic little start to this epistle? So okay, here’s the story…

About a month ago, I started noticing that there was some blood in my urine when I went to the bathroom. Yes, I know…that’s kind of personal information, but the rest of this doesn’t make much sense unless you know that part. It was just before my trip to Turkey, so I obviously I had other things on my mind and didn’t think much about it. While I was gone though, I noticed it was getting to be more and more. Not all the time, mind you…but often enough.

When I got home, I still kind of put off doing anything about it. My main excuse will be that I was busy getting back into the swing of things here. My secondary backup excuse (when people get grumpy with me for the first excuse) will be that I have this thing with hospitals and doctors. When I was in my 20’s I spent three months in the hospital and had numerous surgeries and whatnot. It’s caused a psychological aversion to all things medical that, you know, really isn’t my fault. My final (so stop giving me a hard time!) excuse is that I always feel like whatever is happening is just in my head, and when I go to a doctor he’s not going to find anything and he’s going to look at me like I’m a faker and just looking for attention. I inherited this from my mother, so it’s genetic and not even my fault. Nothing I can do about it. I know there was blood in the bowl…doesn’t make any difference. Still felt like I was faking…

So with that out of the way, there’s no need to write and tell me that I’m an idiot for not going to the doctor sooner. We’re all aware of that fact, so let’s just let it go. The important thing is that I did eventually decide to go see someone about this last Tuesday. The doctor in Emergency ran the usual blood/urine tests. He was pretty sure it was either a stone or an infection. The weird thing was that, other than the blood, I wasn’t feeling any pain. Anyone who’s experienced kidney stones will tell you I’m sure…that that’s not normal. =)

A couple of hours later we had the results and there were no stones and no infection. So he made a call and a nurse walked me over to the hospital’s urology specialist.

Let me just take a moment here…I’m a big believer in universal healthcare, especially after living in a country where people die every year from preventable causes. So I’ll defend our healthcare system to the day I die. Even if sometimes we have to wait for treatment, it’s better that everyone has access to the same care.

Having said that, I now get why people with money want to be able to buy faster service. I went straight from Emergency to see a specialist. They did an x-ray and ultrasound of my abdomen that same evening. Nothing showed up, so the specialist ordered a CAT scan for the next morning. Bang, bang, bang….it was fast. I dropped nearly a $1000 in two days, but still…things were happening.

Wednesday I sat with the doctor as he looked at the results of the CAT scan. The first thing he told me?

“So it seems you don’t have a right kidney.”

Uh…what?

"In the x-ray, the ultrasound and now the CAT scan, there’s no sign of your right kidney. Did you have it removed?”

Um…pretty sure no. I think I would have remembered that. He said he figured I was probably born without that kidney then. So as my head is wrapping itself around that little tidbit of information, he goes on to tell me that he thinks there might be a growth on my other kidney (you know, my one remaining kidney). Something showed up on the scan. He showed it to me, and it definitely looked like there’s something there. So he says the first thing we need to find out is whether or not it’s cancer.

He went on to explain what tests he was going to do the next day, and honestly, as I sat there listening, my brain wasn’t freaking out or anything…I was quite calm. But then slowly I started to feel a heat slide down over my head and my body just got hotter and hotter. I guess that’s what happens when the “C” word gets dropped into the conversation. I knew in my head that it probably wasn’t cancer, but that didn’t make a stitch of difference to the rest of me. I felt myself start to get emotional, and if you know me at all, you know I’m not exactly an emotional person. As I sat there I just told myself, “You are so not going to get all weepy in front of a doctor you barely know!” So I jammed all that silly emotion stuff back down, deep inside where it belongs. =) After I finished up with the doctor, I did call my mom from my truck though. There are just moments when you need to talk to mom. She was as surprised about my lack of a kidney as I was. Especially after all the medical stuff I’ve been through. I felt better after talking to the family (funny how that works) and then I went and hung out at my friend, Jorge’s house. We prayed together and I felt pretty calm again.

Thursday morning I was back for another CAT scan, but this time they dumped some kind of radioactive liquid into me so they could take a better picture of my insides. I knew it was a long shot, but I was still kind of hoping the radioactive stuff would give me superpowers. Nothing so far, but I’ll keep you posted.

I thought I’d get to see the doctor again right away (it really doesn’t take long to get accustomed to this pay-as-you-go/get-service-right-now system they have here), but it was stupid Mother’s Day (no offence moms) and the doctor’s office was closed. Mother’s Day is bigger than Christmas here, so of course the doctor and his staff went home for the day.

So I had to wait until Friday evening. That was a really long thirty-some hours. The other grumpy thing is that I think I had some kind of reaction to the radioactive stuff and suffered through a night of high fevers and the shakes. Seriously…just like Peter Parker except no Spiderman.

When I did eventually see the doctor last night, there was good news. Definitely no cancer! What looked like a tumor was just a strange lumpy part of my kidney…lumpy but normal. The image, by the way, was very cool. It looked like somebody took a colour picture of my kidneys. Or kidney I guess. There was definitely only one there. Not even a little stumpy where my right kidney should be. Just a big hole.

So what’s next? Well, as glad as I am that the whole cancer thing is a no go, we’re still back at square one as to what is going on. So Tuesday they’re going to knock me out, cut me a little and stick a camera inside of me to try and see what’s up. Of course I’m not thrilled by the idea, but whatever…I guess if that’s what needs to happen.

So if you could pray about all of this with me, that’d be great. For the most part I feel fine. Like I said, there isn’t any pain or anything. I do think though, that some discomfort I was feeling in my lower back (that I thought was from the accident last year) might actually be related to this instead. I started paying more attention, and I realized that most of the pain is only on my left side where my kidney is.

I’ll let you know when I learn anything. One funny moment in all of this…my mom was talking to my brother on the phone and was explaining everything to him (this was when we thought there might be cancer involved). She jokingly asked him if he was ready to donate a kidney to me. There was dead silence on the phone and so she asked him again. His reply?

“Just a minute, I’m thinking about all the things he did to me when we were kids.”

Ah, my family…so supportive.