Hemangiopericytoma

So yesterday I had a lovely morning spent at the doctors office. I started out with a panic attack inducing MRI followed by another IV sticking CT scan and then concluded with a visit with Dr. Monson to get his take on the 2 tests and also get the results from the biopsy on my tumor from a week ago. For the sake of the story… lets go in order.

The MRI – The doctor had given me some antibiotics to take before my CT scan so the contrast that they put in my veins doesn’t make me have an allergic reaction like it did on thanksgiving day. So The antibiotics have a nice side effect of making you restless so i woke up at 4am the morning of the MRI and jumped online to study up on MRIs. Its essentially a giant hardcore magnet that takes killer photos of your body. but if you have metal in your body or really old tattoos its not a fun experience. And they slam you in a tube for 40 minutes to boot. As i got set up for the MRI i looked at the machine that i was going to be neck deep in thinking “there is no way my big butt and broad shoulders are gonna fit in this thing.” And pretty much they didn’t. If i had to get my chest MRI’d i would be screwed. Imagine that scene from The Incredibles where Mr. Incredible is a bit on the THICK side and he tries to get shot out of that pod but his belly is stopping him from fitting in.. it was like that..but my shoulders arms were the things that didn’t want to go in any further. They finally got me situated, put the ear plugs in (cos that machine is flipping loud) and i laid there for 45 minutes as this thing just beeped a rhythm over and over again. For a while i was day dreaming about playing drums to that beat and what kind of weird syncopations i could add to throw the beat off. Eventually i just fell into a light sleep so that was cool. Painless but slightly terrifying.

The CT Scan – I was terrified of this test again. Not only do i HATE getting pricked with needles, but the last time i had a bad reaction to the contrast flowing through my veins leaving my face and neck red, itchy and swollen. ( i wish i had a picture from Thanksgiving day when i woke up my face looked like this… sort of). This time too the scan was on my chest and not my leg. The doc wanted to see if, in the case that it was cancerous, that it didn’t spread to my chest. I was not excited about the scan. Not to mention that the nurse that was helping me was easily in her 60s with an eyebrow piercing. Can I tell you how unnerving it is having someone that reminds you of your grandma with an eyebrow ring? Really confidence instilling. Ok, moving on. They stuck me with the IV, did the test where i had to hold my breath for 45 seconds as the machine scans my chest. Its hard to hold your breath while you are very uncomfortable, with a needle in your arm and neck deep in an open tube like thing. Somehow i did it and BOOM.. the test was done. Now on to Dr. Monsons for ‘the results”

The Results – Dr. Monson is the kind of dude who is very stoic, serious and dignified with a really really dry sense of humor. We picked up on that last week. He came in, didn’t shake our hand just rapidly said ” you have a Hemangiopericytoma with benign characteristics and I want to take it out on Monday. Does that work for you?” Then he smiled and said… “Hi, how’s it going?” He told us he had expected to give is bad news and confirm that it was a cancerous sarcoma but the biopsy results show that it whatever I said above and it looks to be benign. Which is GREAT NEWS. We won’t know for sure how good/bad the tumor is until its all out and sent to the lab for hardcore testing but it all seems to be really good.

On this upcoming Monday (December 10) I go in for surgery to remove the tumor from my leg. I should be in the hospital for 1-2 days. I will get a pretty brutal incision on my thigh – about a 10″ cut. I’m guessing it will leave a wicked cool scar. I told the doctor that If its cool enough i can tell people that i got in a knife fight in the streets. He then chimed in and in a very serious voice “i would tell them that you got in a shark attack. I can even add some extra cuts to simulate teeth marks if you’d like.” This dude it really cool. I don’t think i’ll take him up on the teeth marks but i will let him get all gnarly on my leg and get rid of this stupid mass. So yeah.. thats whats going on. I just wanted to thank you all so much for your prayers and awesome words of encouragement. It could have been way worse but it looks like everything is gonna be good.

Please keep me in your prayers (Leah too) on Monday. I, like most people, am not a huge fan of hospitals and stuff like that so I just want them to give me the meds that put me to sleepy time. I am making leah bring the digital camera to document the whole thing because I’m sure i’ll be high as a kite for most of it… so maybe we’ll post some of that stuff next week.