What the MRI told us

Here's the first thing I noticed about today's doctor. He was cute, and younger than I am, though not by much. But when did I get old enough for specialist doctors to be younger? Anyway, I would be totally crushing on him except A) he's married, and B) I'm not likely to ever see him again. We shall call him Dr. S.

Dr. S's speciality is hematology/oncology which means that most of the time he's seeing people with cancer or lymphoma. I have neither of those. What I do have is a boatload of cysts on my spleen. But we looked at my MRI (much easier to make sense of than an ultrasound) and he told me all the reasons why he's confident it's not cancer. I hadn't thought it was, but it's still nice to have the confirmation.

He can't tell how long the cysts have been there. Possibly since birth but since we have nothing to compare it to we can't really know.

Then we talked about the risks of doing nothing. Basically where there is a cyst (and there are many) the spleen wall is thinner and prone to rupture if I were ever to have a traumatic injury to it. For example getting in a car accident and having the seatbelt yank hard against the spleen. If it ruptures there would be a lot of internal bleeding and definitely emergency surgery to remove it.

In order to preemptively avoid the potential emergency we could remove the spleen now. (And by now we don't mean while I'm open anyway removing the uterus. It would be a separate surgery entirely.) Apparently you can live just fine without your spleen, though you are at more risk for infectious diseases.

Personally I am of the opinion that if it's not causing me any trouble lets just leave it. Dr. S did then ask if I was happy with having my other surgery since the fibroids aren't causing me any trouble either. But I told him that they went from softball sized to basketball sized in a year and a half and he said, oh yes, definitely get them out then. And in that vein I may have to get another MRI in 6 months to see if there are any changes to the cysts. If not then we'll leave it be, and if yes then we'll revisit the possibility of surgery.

In the meantime though he has set me up with an appointment with the head of general surgery. (Didn't have to be the chief, that's just who had an open appointment.) He said it's unusual for him to see spleens that aren't cancerous so it might be good to have someone with more expertise with otherwise healthy spleens to weigh in with an opinion. He may look at the MRI and say yeah you're fine. Or he may decide to take a peek at my actual spleen when I'm opened up for surgery anyway and make an assessment based on what he sees. Or he may say to stick with the MRI in 6 months for comparison. Or I suppose he may say, oh my goodness lets take it out. At which point I may just get a 3rd opinion because I'll do whatever I need to do, but don't want to do it if I don't have to.

Mom asked how I was holding up. That confused me at first. It was good news, why wouldn't I be fine? She doesn't like that I'm dealing with so much stuff all by myself over here. But it's not like if I were in Maryland I'd be going over to Linda's house tonight. I mean, maybe if it had been cancer I would have needed a hug. But really, I'm fine. I don't think the surgery will be particularly pleasant, but I am looking forward to after it's all done and I'm recovered. Am I meant to be freaking out right now? Am I meant to need support? I'll be quite happy when everyone rallies around to take care of me in July, but right now there's nothing I need.

Right now I am trying very hard to have Wilson not be the first thing on my mind. One of the first questions Dr. S asked me today was how do you feel. I said, "I'm the healthiest sick person you're going to see all day. I feel great." When I was at the Cape over the weekend with Mom and Dad we ran into Bob and Mary and Mary asked how we all are and I said fine and Mom said, "Kristin's having surgery." And it's not that I'm trying to be private about it. Pretty much I'll tell anyone who wants to know. It's just that before the surgery happens I really don't want it to define me. During recovery it will. I will be unable to think about anything else I'm sure. But right now I'm really not dwelling on it. Poor Mom though, she's the worrier of the family, she can't help but dwell on it.

Really it's not taking that much effort to not dwell on it except when I realize that Mom is and I'm not and I sort of worry that I'm missing something. Am I having a little ignorance is bliss moment? Should I be worried? But really unless someone gives me a compelling reason to live the next month anxious I'm not going to.