Bodies, wonderful creations that they are, can be strange. They are adaptive things. They react when their natural processes are interfered with.
Over the course of the last year, I've been targeted with radiation, cut into (and some stuff removed), and pumped with nasty and sometimes poisonous chemicals. I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose, that my body has reacted in strange ways.
Right now I have two issues going on, both possibly (but not definitely) related to cancer treatment.
Issue one: excess tissue buildup, or something like that -- possibly scar tissue? -- that is possibly impinging a part of my urinary tract, causing one kidney to become a bit dilated. Also (related or not?) a buildup of gas where gas cannot, technically, happen under normal circumstances (no, not that kind of gas), in the general area.
Issue two: fingertips that are, well, feeling strange. Not numb -- definitely not that. Not hurting, really. But...sensitive? Tight? Feeling as if they're swollen even though they're not?
Saw a urologist today. I appreciate a doctor who takes a go-slow approach. I'll have an ultrasound in that general region in a couple of weeks to see if the antibiotics I'm on actually help things return to normal. If not, I may have to have a stent placed in that tube.
See a neurologist at the end of the month about the fingertips, in search of neuropathy or some similar.
The tissue buildup issue may be related to radiation, surgery, or both. The finger issue may be a late-blooming side effect of chemo. Cancer: the gift that keeps on giving, even when you'd rather it not.
The bizarre thing is that, unlike when diagnosed with cancer (I didn't expect that diagnosis but I knew something was up), I'm actually feeling fairly good these days. Finally with some distance from chemo and the bacterial infection that followed, I could actually say I wasn't feeling sick or draggy. We were able to go down to North Carolina for a wedding and I didn't actually feel a whole lot of fatigue, no more than one normally might expect. If there's an infection in there it has a funny way of (not) showing it. Yet that PET-CT scan last week showed something was off, and a new round of visits to new doctors is the result.
So that's what's what at the moment. This is not so much the "omg!" kind of news that cancer diagnosis was; these are more "wtf??" results, notable for strangeness and incomprehensibility than immediate threat. To be sure, if the ureter is blocked that has to be fixed -- I don't need a failed kidney. Still, this doesn't have the same shock value as that news of a little over a year ago.
Meanwhile I start an internship (non-parish version) tomorrow and started a church choir singing gig yesterday. Life goes on until it doesn't, and ideally that will be some time from now.
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