That's right, you read it here first, I am NOT pregnant!
As most of you know in May of 2009 I was diagnosed with Cancer. Had surgery 2 weeks later which confirmed it was stage 1 cancer, radiation in August of 2009 and then every 6 months for 5 years I need to get a screening done to make sure it didn't spread before the treatment occurred.
Today was my next six-month follow-up screening... The CT Scan is fine, chest X-Ray is fine... The blood work shows normal AFP and that I'm not pregnant... WHAT?!? Apparently the lab did a qualitative HcG test instead of Quantitative HcG. Qual is used in pregnancy tests, Quan is used, amongst other things, as part of the cancer screening. So now I have to go do another blood draw so they can run the correct HcG test. Oh well... It's the CT scan I REALLY hate about this whole process, doing another blood test is no big deal! But what a relief to know that I am NOT pregnant, I was really worried about that one!
So everything is looking fine, pending the new blood test which I expect will be fine and my doctor gave me good news - since we're at the 3.5 year mark we'll switch over to 1 year visits!! Woo hoo!! While the other tests don't bother me, I REALLY don't like the CT scan, so moving the tests to only once a year is definitely worth celebrating!!
It's been an interesting 3.5 years, especially that first year following treatment. That first year or so every time I had a pain - no matter where it was - maybe my leg hurt or I have a headache I would think the worst --- I have cancer in that area of my body. No, I didn't have a headache because I'm tired and been working hard, it had to be cancer, at least that was the thought process. Jump to the OMG and then back away and realize it's just a normal not enough sleep too much work headache. My doctor said that was completely normal, happens to a lot of people... After a year or so of doing that I stopped jumping to that OMG thought. As the years go on I'm more confident that the cancer is gone.
Going through this certainly gives new perspective and what I have gone through is NOTHING compared to what many have to go through.