So, yesterday was my 6 month gastric surgery anniversary. And Holy Crap. Yesterday was a rollercoaster of emotions for me. I started the day feeling pretty good. Went to the Cardiologist. He was so happy for my weight loss. He wanted me to lose weight, but didn't know about the VSG. He was impressed with how much weight I lost so fast. He also commented I look great and was shocked I don't look "sickly" at all due to the rapid weight loss like many patients he sees. He was thrilled with my increased physical activity and my plans to hike the "Camino de Santiago" in Spain this summer. (It is a "pilgrimage" where you walk literally across Northern Spain or another route to Santiago de Compostela). We discussed my tachycardia and sometimes low blood pressure. He is having me reduce my dosage to half a pill (YAY!). We discussed my cholesterol and medication for it. I told him of my desire to attempt to go off it for a while to see if I can keep my lipid panel numbers in check without it now that I lost all my excess weight and am eating much healthier. We agreed that I will stay on it for 6 more months and then do labs. If my numbers are good, he will let me go off them and see how my labs hold up. I acknowledged to him that I know if they do go back on them, then I will have to take it for the rest of my life... he was happy with that compromise. On top of all that already great news... I asked him about my EKG which I had already looked at myself (I am a former trauma nurse, I know how to read them). He confirmed what I already knew... my EKG was NORMAL!!! Now this is HUGE because the reason I decided to look into WLS in the first point was because I was worried about my heart. At my appointment with him in fall 2018, my EKG showed that I had an enlarged Left Ventrical for the first time. I had an echocardiogram several months later that confirmed the EKG findings. THIS is the reason I insisted on getting weight loss surgery in the first place. My heart was working too hard and was beginning to enlarge. This was unacceptable. This was my reason to stop "trying" to lose weight and for making sure I "did" lose weight. So here I am... 1 1/2 years after identifying that my heart was enlarging.... and all my excess weight is GONE and my enlarged heart is GONE TOO! OMG, I left the cardiologist office on such a high note, I practically floated home lol. And I called my husband with so much excitement. It was a great day. Until.....

During the drive home from my cardiologist I got an e-mail from the radiology office. I saw the e-mail when I stopped to exchange some pants at Old Navy. Some of you may recall I posted recently that my bilirubin levels had been rising since surgery. I normally have a high normal to slightly high bilirubin level. It is something that I have monitored my entire adult life. But since surgery, my bilirubin keeps getting higher. I saw my lab results before my bariatric surgeon did. I printed the results, wrote a note to my regular nurse practitioner, and dropped them off at her office. She called a couple hours later and agreed that we need to do an ultrasound to check my gallbladder and liver out. I did that Tuesday and was told that the results would not be available until Friday. Except now it is Wednesday, the next day, and I get a text that my results were available online. Again, I saw the results before either my general nurse practitioner or the bariatric surgeon. And what I read was devastating. My liver and gallbladder are just fine (weird... so why is my bilirubin elevated?). But I have a fairly large mass in my Left Kidney! I have a flippin TUMOR in my kidney! And they recommended on my report that I get a CT Scan or an MRI to further assess it. They used 2 terms to describe what kind of mass it appears to be. Both terms used, are the kind of masses that are cancerous 85% of the time. And even if it ISN'T cancer.... the mass is big enough that I know the first line of treatment is either a partial or total nephrectomy. Holy Crap. Add to that, I know that my grandfather wasn't much older than me when he had kidney cancer and had HIS left kidney removed. And I figure out all of this within 5 minutes, because as a Registered Nurse I already know too much. Still... I keep my **** together and calmly (but unnerved) drive home. I get home, I refill my water, I sit for a minute quitely before I call my husband over to talk. He is a Registered Nurse too... and I told him there is a mass on my Kidney and he made the same assessment I did... only he is much more panicked about it than I am. He wants to rush over to the nurse practitioners office NOW. I told him I want to wait a little bit so she can have time to look at the report first. Then I noticed a missed call from her. How I missed it, is beyond me... but she must have called in the 1 - 1 minute dead zone on my way home. What luck. And BTW, she doesn't make patient phone calls normally DURING her work schedule... she calls after she sees all her patients for the day. I know this because that is when she ALWAYS calls me for results. This was unusual for her. I knew she was worried before I even spoke to her. I called back and got a voicemail. (husband still panicking and wanting to rush over). I called a couple more times and got through to her. Instead of waiting for her to slowly break the news... I let her know I just saw the report and I know I had a mass on my kidney and that my liver and gallbladder were fine. This helped speed up her getting to the point... I needed a CT Scan and a referral to a specialist. She was at the same conclusion I was... it is a tumor and there is a good chance it is cancerous. I don't think she was going to say the "C" word yet... but after I mentioned it, she agreed. Now... my referrals always take a week. ALWAYS take a week to get back so I can schedule an appointment. So, I asked my husband if we can go for a walk somewhere. Well THAT was a disaster lol... because I got several calls from the referral lady and within an hour or so of my phone call to the NP about the results... I was running to the radiology office to pick up barium to drink for my CT scan on FRIDAY. Friday. The day I was supposed to be getting these results back, and now I am going in for a CT Scan already. Talk about FAST RESPONSE! The fact that she rushed this so much and managed to get me in to the radiologist office so soon just confirms how worried my NP really is, so that is totally stressful! Still don't know what specialist I will be seeing, but by the time I get that referral I will have results in hand from the scan, so that is good.

On the plus side... I already know the rest of my abdominal organs are fine according to the Ultrasound. The CT scan will look more closely at all of it... but I don't have any reason to believe if it IS cancer that it metastasized. But now I have to gear up to drink a ton of barium (um... no clue how I will get this all in... I am only 6 months post op!). And now I have to deal with a tumor that could be cancerous and I might need a kidney partially or completely removed. Chemo is very unlikely, but radiation or other treatments might be needed. And on top of all that I still need an MRI for my L Knee because I might have a torn meniscus that might need surgery and definitely need physical therapy. And I am SUPPOSED to walk across Spain starting May 25th. Yay me. I thought I was THISCLOSE to being healthy again and all this **** happens! And how much you want to bet the Coronavirus hits my city hard right about the same time I need 1-2 more surgeries! Not afraid of the Coronavirus... except my immune system will be already under attack if I need a kidney removed!

Update: CT Scan done with and without contrast. It APPEARS that the tumor like mass that is the size of a golf ball (round too) is some ugly scarring! I still need a Urology consult so the urologist can look at both scans closely to confirm, but I am no longer thinking Cancer (YAY!). But again... if he looks and decides it IS Cancer afterall... I now also know that it doesn't appear to be a problem anywhere else. I do have some "prominent" lymph nodes... but small enough to not be alarming. So... I have bad scarring on my Left Kidney and some kidney atrophy indicating kidney disease... but my kidney related labs are pretty decent so it is probably a mild form of kidney disease (but with lots of scarring). I am guessing it was caused by many frequent UTI's throughout my life. Still, I don't know what kidney testing my mom had me do as a kid, she somehow doesn't remember me going for some testing (I certainly do). But she is a person who doesn't "remember" anything negative lol. I guess I will never know if I was diagnosed with a kidney problem as a kid or not. And the CT scan did get a look at my heart... and everything appears normal from a CT scan perspective, confirming my cardiologist view that my heart is much healthier already!!! And again... my liver, gallbladder, pancreas, spleen, Right Kidney, and what they could see of my digestive tract etc etc etc all look good.

Oh mah gosh! What a relief and answer to prayers!!!! ((hugs)) I know you are still probably on edge, but this is really brilliant news!!! And now you know about an unknown kidney issue that you can help protect and maybe heal or put into remission through lifestyle choices and weight loss!!! Woot!! Awesome sauce, hon!!!

Just now, FluffyChix said:

Oh mah gosh! What a relief and answer to prayers!!!! ((hugs)) I know you are still probably on edge, but this is really brilliant news!!! And now you know about an unknown kidney issue that you can help protect and maybe heal or put into remission through lifestyle choices and weight loss!!! Woot!! Awesome sauce, hon!!!

Thanks! Yes, I am definitely relieved. I will still be "tentative" until I get confirmation from the Urologist... but I feel so much more confident already. And we all know even if I have a bad kidney disease, you only need 1 good one to have a good quality of life. I have 1 good one for sure!

I was telling my bosses... after the first report my husband and I went out and he bought me some cute new "you have cancer" outfits lol. You have to know my husband to know he is a cheapskate and hates buying new clothing.... but he was trying to help me feel better and distracted. After I got my CT results we were looking for shoes for me, and now because he encouraged me... I also have several new pairs of "I don't have cancer" shoes lol. And of course now the novelty has worn off so I don't get to go shopping (with his approval) for quite a while lmao. Don't get me wrong... I buy what I want, when I want to... but not when he is around because he is such a cheapskate lol. For him to buy me nice clothes and shoes means he was very worried and then very relieved.

Thank goodness!! Your husband sounds like a keeper. Now you need I'm walking across Spain clothes!!

I love the idea of the "I don't have cancer wardrobe"!!! Way to work it, right?

2 minutes ago, lisafrommassachusetts said:

Thank goodness!! Your husband sounds like a keeper. Now you need I'm walking across Spain clothes!!

LOL. I got those! This is the kind of trip where you where 1 outfit, carry one outfit, and MAYBE a spare and do laundry every day or every other day. Since you carry all your belongings every day for more than a month you don't want the extra clothes with. That said... I will definitely do some "Post Camino" shopping after I finish the walking portion of my trip in Spain! I should have 1-2 "touristy" weeks where I will want more clothes for sure. Shopping in Lisbon or Barcelona will be fun!

3 minutes ago, FluffyChix said:

I love the idea of the "I don't have cancer wardrobe"!!! Way to work it, right?

Yep! And bonus is when these things happen, he is just so much more generous that I don't even have to ask lol BTW, did I mention, those "I had a cancer scare" clothes I bought were size SMALL?!?!?! And I went to buy 1-2 pairs of "I don't have cancer shoes" and wound up with 7 pairs lol. Which is good because my feet are smaller than pre-op... I had been building up my professional work shoe collection and these will fill that need, but are more playful and can be used as fun summertime shoes too.

12 minutes ago, momof3_angels said:

Yep! And bonus is when these things happen, he is just so much more generous that I don't even have to ask lol BTW, did I mention, those "I had a cancer scare" clothes I bought were size SMALL?!?!?! And I went to buy 1-2 pairs of "I don't have cancer shoes" and wound up with 7 pairs lol. Which is good because my feet are smaller than pre-op... I had been building up my professional work shoe collection and these will fill that need, but are more playful and can be used as fun summertime shoes too.

Congrats on ALL. THE. THINGS! Woot! Size small and smaller shoes AND no cancer! Score!

Last update: Urologist confirmed, it was nasty scarring! No need for follow up with Urology... however I do need to take steps to protect the remainder of my kidney. The scar/damage area is huge (golfball), the kidney has definitely atrophied... but otherwise the rest of the kidney is in good health. Need to keep it that way. My biggest challenge will be preventing UTI's. I need to stop doing some of the stuff I was originally taught my entire life to do to prevent them. No cranberry. Have a lit of foods to avoid. I instead will be adding D-Mannose supplements which I had never heard of before lol. It doesn't prevent or fight the bacteria... but instead makes the lining of the bladder "slippery" so the bacteria can't stick to it. Interesting. Learn something new every day. Once again, I had no symptoms, but my urinalysis showed an infection so I am on antibiotics again. Have to see my PCP to recheck my urine. I swear, I always have a UTI. And I rarely have symptoms. So, keeping UTI free will be challenging!

Best of luck, and so, so glad it was not more serious.

Oh, I'm so happy it's good news!

Can you take a small dose of antibiotics all the time to keep the UTIs at bay? That's what a urologist was doing with my MIL who had them all the time. Worked well until she died--at 94!

17 hours ago, JRT Mom said:

Oh, I'm so happy it's good news!

Can you take a small dose of antibiotics all the time to keep the UTIs at bay? That's what a urologist was doing with my MIL who had them all the time. Worked well until she died--at 94!

I am going to try the D-Mannose first. See if that helps. But I also think I need to ask my PCP to routinely do a urinalysis every time I see her, since I don't always have symptoms.

I swear... my saga never ends. Got the good news about my kidney. Then I got the latest blood results back. My labs were WONDERFUL. Except for my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) level. It was high enough to order more tests to see what was going on, and to see if I had Hashimoto Disease (and another autoimmune but can't remember what). Seriously? My TSH has NEVER been high before. And the rest of my labs were so perfect I would have thought that they ran someone else's blood instead of mine... except that bilirubin level was still high (but not quite as high). So... back to the lab again. More calls with my nurse practitioner. Turns out my newer thyroid related tests were all fine. WHEW! Another close call. So... bilirubin still high (may never know why), but my liver, gallbladder, pancreas, spleen, stomach, intestines (the parts they could see), Right kidney, and my thyroid are all in good shape. Nasty scarring on my left kidney, but otherwise fine. My EKG is back to normal. No UTI after my last round of antibiotics. Oh... skin checks are usually normal too (had 2 cancerous lesions removed but not the bad kind). Knee seems to be doing better after an injury. I do have some mild osteopenia. I guess that just leaves my lungs that haven't been checked out recently? Hmmm... wonder when I will have a bad asthma flareup... seems like that will be next LMAO. Oh.... and my brain hasn't been checked, but I did pass my psych eval well enough to qualify for surgery, so I guess that is good. But really... what is next? LMAO Grateful everything is good news, but boy am I sick of doctors visits! I need to reschedule my dermatologist 6 month check, and my eye exam, then I have my nutritionist and surgeon nurse practitioner visit in the next 2 months back to my FNP and cardiologist in the fall... but after that I would really love to have yearly visits only! And to fire a couple docs!