Mo' Betta and profoundly affected

April flowers



First, Thank you all for your support and concern about my health concerns and fears in my recent posts. I couldn't even call my sister at Mother's day because I couldn't tell her they were working me up for an ovarian issue. I knew I would spill my guts and that she would completely freak out if she knew I was waiting on CA 125 results. She has lost too many people close to her with cancer, and her fiance' has cancer and just had a bone marrow transplant. She can't handle one more thing right now, so it was nice to have support from the blog world and my husband and immediate friends.

Now that I've talked with the doc and I have a plan I will share my latest and greatest health update ( with my sister too). My Ca 125 test for Ovarian Cancer was normal but the doctor , the lab, and the internet were quick to tell me that this is not really an indicator for / or against having cancer. Yippee?

But with my other sister passing from Ovarian Cancer so young and so many female members of the family having breast cancer, I am going to have genetic testing -BRCA tests. I have a repeat ultrasound in 3 weeks and we will go from there. My biggest cyst of the four is the size of a big grape and is what she calls a "simple cyst". She was telling me the other sizes and all I could think of was the little gold "ADD A BEAD" necklaces from the 80's.

My insurance will cover and my gyn could remove my ovaries prophylactically just based on the history and the cysts even without these results, so I will go in to pondering mode (wait and think). I'd rather make the decision armed with knowledge and thoughtfulness. Meanwhile, all my other crazy symptoms including bizarre sexual overdrive on occasion (not fun, believe it or not, when you are in a conference call) is perimenopause related and I can consider taking a low, low dose hormone to balance out my ovaries.

THE PROFOUND STUFF

Facing health problems and random severe pain that will bring you to your knees can lead a girl to some major changing of behavior. Besides scaring the hell out of me, driving me to drinking Bailey's in my coffee when I shouldn't be, and morbid thoughts on who I would leave my books to, this has kicked me in the arse. And all these platitudes are ringing in my head.

Things like:

" A place of YES" as Bethanny Frankel would say.

"Life is good. " "carpe diem" " Turning it over "

" Okay ,let's do it. All of it." "Have faith" (actually , this one is KEY)



" Git er' done!!!" about everything and with peace and assurance

( I promise I am not a redneck but I do come from Alabama and I can't say the same for ALL of my kinfolk)

And I 've gotten off my arse too since I can't go to the gym. I volunteered at a 5K and directed traffic. Scary. I've organized and cleaned up my office, my hair accessories, my jewelery, re-arranged some furniture and my desk and how I do a process at work,etc etc. Also, How I wanted to arrange my photos on the wall is finally coming in to my vision after a year or so of stuff collecting dusts in boxes.

My eating has been 100% spot on as in healthy, good for me, guilt free, "on plan", whatever whatever. Not a binge , not overeating, not deprivation and not an 'anything' blip on the food radar. I ate when I was hungry and stopped when I was full, Exercise has been gentle and loving and hasn't raised a bead of sweat. I miss the pool and Aqua fit classes. When I'm done with the antibiotics for my UTI, I'm heading to the pool. Maybe Saturday . I'm not pain free, but I can live with it for now. I've got to be proactive against getting uti's.

I am a procrastinator in the first order, but I think all of this organizational "nesting" was the one thing I could do that I could control. It is something I could feel good about, and that reflected my girly side which was now being threatened by invader cysts.

The other positives of this are that I had a really complete ultrasound of my abdominal and pelvic organs and everything is normal except for those cysts. My labs are perfect. I can be proactive versus completely reactive if I need to have surgery.

I am not usually Miss Sunshine but just talking with my doc and coming up with a plan is a relief. ( my nickname in high school was "Doomie: the voice of Doom")

(I had issues then too, but that's another story)