Sunday, February 10, 2013
Something new to worry about....
For the past couple of weeks, Bob has been complaining of pain in his right side, under his rib cage. On a few occasions, the pain seemed so great that I nearly rushed him to ER--but he refused to go. Finally, I got him to see his neurologist who determined the location of the pain was Bob's liver and ordered an ultrasound, blood work, and an x-ray. Which we did on Wednesday.
On Thursday, there was a message from the primary care doctor's office stating that they were referring Bob to a vascular surgeon. That's all the message said, and it was after 5:00 p.m. when we got home that day. Why do doctor's offices do this? Leave a spooky message with no explanation.
So I spent a night worrying.... thinking all sorts of dread thoughts. Another clogged artery? One going to the heart? and, oh god, what if he has a heart attack? I tell you, by morning, I had Bob dead and cremated in my mind.... so I was actually relieved when I called the doctor's office in the a.m. and was told that Bob had "gallbladder polyps".
Which didn't sound bad at all.
Until I googled that term.
And I found out there's a chance these things could be cancerous.
And the normal treatment is removal of the gallbladder. Which would mean another surgery. The prospect of which scares the living crap out of me. Because surgery requires going off the warfarin and going off the warfarin puts him at high risk of another stroke.
I couldn't get an appointment with the vascular surgeon until the end of the month. So I get to worry for a few more weeks until we consult with the doctor.
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4 comments:
The classic catch-22. Breathe, honey. Have faith. God knows what He's doing. With indicators like stroke present, the surgeon knows what is at stake.
Diane, Any polyp "could" be cancerous, but the majority of them are not. Though in a different part of the body, I have had many polyps removed from my large intestine several times over the past 15 yrs and none have been cancerous. Yes, they could be cancerous, but let's be optimistic and believe they are just benign polyps, as mine were.
Sending you both lots of prayers and hugs, Dan
The way surgeons often handle it is to take people off warfarin 10 days before, replace it with low molecular weight heparin (lovenox) until the day of the operation, and put you back on lovenox and warfarin the day after surgery.
This means there is a period when you are not on warfarin or lovenox but it is very short.
Lovenox is actually better at preventing strokes than warfarin, but is much more expensive.
In my experience, Dan is correct - polyps CAN turn cancerous, but haven't already if detected early. Think of it this way ... perhaps your medical personnel are going to improve Bob's situation; you both deserve that.
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