All this wet weather has led to an interesting discovery. Ever since the rain started falling, I've noticed an increase in pain on my surgery site, along with my shoulder which was broken years ago when I was hit by a car. Initially, the connection wasn't obvious, but now I'm starting to think the weather may be causing whatever is going on to get worse. At first, I blamed the shoulder pain on possible tendinitis, since I did have issues with it about 10 to 15 years after it was broken. I figured I'd aggravated it while lifting my monitor a month before, but upon speaking to my family doctor, it seems it's not normal for tendonitis onset to have a month delay, nor should it be lasting THIS long. It's been three months of me being super gentle on my shoulder, yet I'm still experiencing pain. Hopefully, it's just the onset of arthritis, but my family physician is taking it seriously, given my history. So, cue in yet another ultrasound & x-ray, yaay! :p My favourite things, LOL, not!
Speaking of tests, my family doctor has also agreed to try to get a copy of the pathology report from my grapefruit-sized uterine fibroid that was removed back in 2005. Back then, I didn't know enough to even think to ask to see it, so I just figured no news was good news when I never heard anything about it after the surgery. Knowing what I know now, I want to see the report, even though they say it's unrelated to my sarcoma. The fact still remains that in the space of 10 years, my body grew two large masses. I want to see that report!
Back to the subject of the pain I've been having... Recently I started taking turmeric upon the recommendation of some of my fellow liposarcoma survivors for my shoulder, but to my surprise, the pain in my surgery site ALSO almost completely disappeared within 24 hours but returns whenever I stop taking it. Turmeric is said to have a very strong anti-inflammatory agent so now I'm really baffled. I don't think a sarcoma recurrence would inflame any of the tissues, BUT I do know of other sarcoma patients whose recurrences were misdiagnosed as tendonitis, so I'm really happy that my family doctor is not sweeping this under the rug & is at least taking a look to be on the safe side. I should have the results within a week, so cross your fingers for me all goes well. I assume it's either arthritis, tendonitis or both in my shoulder & just the aftereffects of surgery & radiation in my thigh, but still, there's a small part of my mind that worries it's more than that. OK, maybe not that small! Although any distant metastasis is more likely to occur in my abdomen or lungs, liposarcoma has been known to metastasize to odd locations, so I don't take anything for granted. We're not scanning my leg at this point (I'll ask about that next month when I meet with my oncologist), but if anything turns up weird in my shoulder, my family doctor will order an MRI. MRI's have a long wait time when they don't think it's life threatening, so hence the reason we're starting with this other batch of scans.
Meanwhile, next month is my next batch of usual scans to check specifically for distant metastasis. They're sending me for a second CT scan this year despite the original plan being for one CT scan annually, alternated with a chest x-ray & abdominal & pelvic ultrasound the rest of the year. This means increased exposure to radiation, and to quote my oncological team, CT radiation is not insignificant, so I'm not exactly thrilled about this. But somebody messed up & only ordered a chest CT in June, plus the usual pelvic & abdominal ultrasound, instead of scanning everything in just one CT scan like we'd previously discussed. So, now they're doing the CT scan of everything in October, plus they're still doing the pelvic ultrasound, most likely due to my ovarian cysts they're keeping a careful eye on. *sigh* Oh well. It's not worth the stress to argue with them, especially after what happened last time!
Getting back to my surgery site, though, the pain is quite severe when it does happen, but thankfully it's not constant. I think that pain could be sciatic inflammation. Fortunately, that doesn't keep me awake, becaus it only lasts for a few moments & happens when I move a certain way or try to stand or sit, but the strange thing is, it's not every time. Because of this, it's next to impossible to replicate for my oncologist. My shoulder, on the other hand, kept me up at night for about a month. Ah, the joys of getting old & being a sarcoma survivor! :p Despite all this, I am in good spirits & really looking forward to my trip this fall to see my favourite band Placebo's 20th anniversary tour! I think it'll do me a world of good to get out of here for a while!
On a more sombre note, I would like to pay my respects to Jeff Landes who passed away from his six year battle with liposarcoma earlier this summer. Every liposarcoma survivor knows this cancer has a high tendency to recur & many experience multiple recurrences, especially with well-differentiated & de-differentiated liposarcoma. His passing hit me particularly hard, because he was one of the first people to reach out to me when I joined the liposarcoma survivors support group on Facebook. Wherever you are now, Jeff, thanks for sharing your story & spirit with the rest of us lumpy folks. Your sense of humour & amazing spirit are very much missed.
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