This Makes Me Happy

Whenever it takes a long time for me to post anything it means one of a few things; a) I'm too busy to post b) I've got nothing going on in my life worth posting or c) I'm too busy reading other people's blogs.



Actually none of those reasons apply this time. In actuality I've been too depressed to blog. The weird thing is I don't really know why I'm depressed...I just am. The trip to the nutritionist didn't pan out so well.



You see, ever since I've had surgery I've gained weight. That's depressing.


I might be cancer free but now I'm fatter and I didn't even realize how much fatter I'd gotten until I stepped on the scale in the nutritionists office. You know what she told me..."if you don't lose weight through diet and exercise, you're a great candidate for gastric bypass or lapband." That's depressing.

She said it flipping back blond hair and adjusting her ultra slim body on her chair. She didn't know how close I was to picking up the plastic serving size models of fruits and vegetables and pelting her with them over the head.

Great. Now I'm fat enough to be considered for weight loss surgery. Wonderful.



I don't want to be this weight. I am a cancer survivor and I should be healthier than I am. I am supposed to be Wellness Woman and while life is good it will be even better when I'm not pudgy.



I started out gung-ho doing Leslie Sansone, swim aerobics and eating smarter. Somewhere along the line I fell off the wagon and the wagon seemed to have backed up and rolled over me a few times because I really feel like crap. Sleeping has been my most enjoyable exercise lately and if that counted for anything I'd really be getting tons of exercise. I'm awake long enough to go to work, run errands, pay some bills, tidy the house and go right back to sleep. I'm slowly realizing that I have to break this cycle if I want to live to a ripe old age. I was just shocked to realize that I had fallen into that pattern and have been doing it for so long.



A few days ago I stepped outside my house to get into my car to go work. I took a picture of my Camellia bush because it was loaded with flowers that I hadn't seen before and that made me happy. Something so simple, pure and lovely. Best of all it was right in my front yard.

For some weird reason my Camellia bush makes me happy.

Works in Progress

Finally I have a nutrition counselor! I've been trying to get insurance authorization for over a year. At first I was told that I had no coverage, then I was told that I had the coverage but that the doctor needed to refer me. I asked my doctor who hemmed and hawed for several months then...seems like she got tired of me and caved in.

Many have told me that you have to take your own healthcare into your own hands and do with it what works for YOU not for anyone else. Being persistent pays off too.

Often my healthcare team makes (or has made) decisions that seem to benefit them and not me...or they decide not to follow up on a service because either they don't want to do the work involved to find out if they'll get paid or they think it's some experimental or "non-traditional" form of care that they want nothing to do with. I remember telling my gynecologist that I was taking an herbal formula designed to help with symptoms of perimenopause, she looked at me and said rather cautiously, "well if that's what you think will work."

It's getting so that now they hate to see me coming because I've either printed out some stuff from the internet or have written out a bunch of questions to ask them.

No more 5 minute appointments for me. I'm making them work for their money.

I figure if I work for one of the most highly esteemed healthcare systems in the country, which also rivals some of the best in the world, then I need to be getting the best treatment.

Sometimes I don't.

That sucks.

But it's changing.

It's just taken me this long to really figure that out.

I'm a little slow.

Two Years

It's my anniversary. Two years ago today I had my colon resection. I've been thinking about what it's been like for me over the past year and came to some conclusions...which might even explain why I haven't blogged in over a month.

I still struggle with the emotional roller coaster that having a major surgery can leave someone with. My body, though healed, still does not function the way that I thought it would after recovery. No one tells you what to expect because for each person the healing process is different. Mine has been rather SLOW. I'm not sure if it's because I'm a type A personality and I expect things to happen NOW or because I haven't done enough for myself to aid in my own solid recovery. I think it's a combination of both. Either way I expected to be a bit further along than I am now.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I've made a lot of progress. Eating better, getting moderate exercise, still working on the sleeping part. However, I still don't think I've gotten to where I should be in this period of time. Just my opinion...but I do know what I think should be happening for myself.
When I was diagnosed SO MANY PEOPLE told me what they thought I should be doing. Based on their experiences (or in most cases, not) I was instructed to eat this, drink that, take this or use that. While I think that they all meant well it made me crazy! Now that I am two years out some of those same people are STILL trying to enlighten me as to what I should be doing. I have recently learned to thank them for their opinions and move on...or politely ask them to shut up.

A few weeks ago I was going through some papers, cleaning out my desk and file cabinet...an endless and thankless job...when I discovered my medical records that I placed there. What stood out to me is the dates on those papers. My diagnosis was in November and my surgery was in January. It took me a while to figure it out but then it dawned on me...the entire holiday season will never be the same for me again. I lived in fear and uncertainty during those weeks leading up to surgery. I couldn't enjoy what was going on around me because I felt like so much pressure was put on me, so many decisions I had to make and then not knowing the outcome, was more than I could bear.

Last year I felt depressed and out of sorts around mid-November for no particular reason, or so I thought. The feeling continued throughout Christmas and into the New Year but I ignored it. Mysteriously it went away by the time February rolled around. The same pattern began to happen again this past year. I could never quite put my finger on it but as soon as I saw those medical record dates it slammed me into reality. I work with patients suffering from various forms of PTSD and seasonal disorders as well as depressive episodes around significant events. It never dawned on me that the same thing could be happening to me.

This year I'll need to pre-plan the holiday season and its activities. I have a friend whose husband died on December 16th and for Christmas she and her children went to Aruba to be away from familiar surroundings. She knew what was coming up for her emotionally and planned the trip months in advance.

I discovered a lot of good things in the last year as well. While bending down to pull a chart from a shelf at work, one of the nurses noticed my port scar and grabbed my arm. Confused, I looked at her and followed her to the staff lounge where she unbuttoned her top button revealing an identical scar. "Sorry to grab you like that", she apologized,"but I've been meaning to ask you about that scar for a long time." We talked about our surgeries, hers for breast cancer 13 years ago, and how many things we have in common, like the same oncologist, Dr. G. She assured me that the healing process is slow and that you would never again be the same person you were before your cancer diagnosis.

I know that I am not alone in this journey. That's the best thing I've discovered in my recovery process. "You're a survivor too!", my nurse friend gushed.

Yeah, I am a survivor.

Election Night In A Psych Hospital

I am SO glad that the election is over but indeed VERY happy about the outcome. There were times I wished I was in a foreign country to avoid the ENDLESS coverage and the mudslinging ads on TV as well as the tireless discussions *cough* (arguments) between friends with differing opinions.

However, I was glad that I was around while history was being made. You see Barack Obama lost both his mother and his grandmother to cancer. Election day was even more poignant because I was here to see him be chosen as our 44th president. Tragically they weren't able to, but I think they knew he was destined for greatness. I am thankful every day that I am able to be alive to witness extraordinary events such as this.

As you probably already know I work in a psych hospital. Being at work on election night is very interesting. Being at work on election night with a bunch of adolescents is even more interesting. There's the very psychotic girl who rates her day during group therapy a 10 for a great day but a "1 if John McCain wins". Needless to say she went to bed feeling a 10.

Then there were other clueless ones who kept calling John McCain "John Insane" (ironic, isn't it?) and the republicans "white, old and stupid". Parroting what they'd heard, but when pressed for details as to why they felt that way, couldn't come up with anything solid.

Then there was one who wondered "what state is this happening in?", and we all looked at her as if she had two heads, clicked our tongues and said, "sweetie it's happening all over the whole country". Still there were those who played checkers the entire time, oblivious to what was happening around them.

On the child unit there was much mirth and glee...even though it wasn't evident that the children really understood what was going on. As I was passing through they were all in their pajamas jumping up and down and clapping along with Obama's acceptance speech. Briefly the camera panned the throng and picked up Obama's two little girls. I heard one of the children giggle, "look there's his daughters!", and they all clapped for Barack's daughters who were roughly the same ages as they were.

Cute.

Nearly every (medicated) adult on the unit was in front of the TV. I was high-fived by a complete and total stranger. Two staff chest-bumped each other and tried to get me to. I declined. My happiness was contained, although I had to admit that there were tears running down my cheeks after witnessing what was happening.

It was then that I realized that Barack's victory wasn't just about ethnicity (most of the people rejoicing were white) but about unity. I had never seen so many smiles in the parking lot after work that weren't about the shift ending.

Remarkable.

That was probably the best shift I've worked so far.

Follow Up

I wrote in an earlier post that I would respond to the program that aired last month, Stand up to Cancer. If you saw it you would know that it raised millions of dollars.

I liked the fact that the show focused on all types of cancer, not just a few. I liked also that they used real people to tell their stories, although I was somewhat annoyed by the use of some of the celebrities, but then again, if they were used to bring in more money... more power to them.

I encourage you to visit the website, you can watch the previously aired show via podcast. They continue to take donations and have listed a memoriam of the latest cancer victims. You can even "launch a star" to honor anyone who has received a cancer diagnosis.

While the program only lasted an hour it was a great kickoff to an enormous and important ongoing event.

Committment #12

No. I didn't forget. I just haven't been up to posting lately. Anyway here's what my 12th commitment is.

I am committed to being kind to myself. I realize that I am my own worst enemy. I am hard on myself which in turn makes me hard on others unnecessarily. I tend to hold myself to a standard of achievement that sometimes even I find hard to maintain. Who am I trying to impress? I live alone so certainly it can't be me.

I have often gone to bed late and woke up tired the next day to get up and mop and wax my wood floors when I could have easily done it in stages at times that were more convenient. I drive myself to achieve perfection even when it isn't necessary. Worse still, I hold others to the same lofty standards that I hold myself too and call them "slackers" when they don't make the cut.

Well. Those days are gonna be over.

No more staying up past 1 am to clean unnecessarily. No more judging people for not doing what I'm doing.

I am learning to be OK with myself and accepting my limitations. It's OK if the laundry isn't folded the instant it comes out of the dryer. It's OK if you didn't put away the dishes after you washed them....

Easier said than done but I'm taking it one day at a time.

I SO want to do this next time!

Although it's not perfected the virtual colonoscopy would be a far less dreaded procedure. I found another article written by Mike Stobbe an Associated Press medical writer, through Yahoo Health News.

ATLANTA - A long-awaited federal study of an X-ray alternative to the dreaded colonoscopy confirms its effectiveness at spotting most cancers, although it was far from perfect.

Medicare is already considering paying for this cheaper, less intrusive option that could persuade more people to get screened for colon cancer. And some experts believe the new method may boost the 50 percent screening rate for a cancer that is the country's second biggest killer.

"We're talking about for the first time really screening the population," said Dr. Carl Jaffe, an imaging expert at the National Cancer Institute who was not involved in the research.

In the new study, the largest of its kind, the so-called "virtual colonoscopy" identified nine out of 10 people who had cancers and large growths seen by regular colonoscopies.

But there were flaws, too. Among them: The radiologists sometimes misread the X-ray, leading them to spot polyps that weren't there. That led to unnecessary follow-up testing.

The X-ray test's real value may be in showing who really needs a regular colonoscopy — it was better at ruling cancer out than it was at detecting it, suggests the report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Colorectal cancer will claim about 50,000 lives this year. The point of screening, widely recommended at age 50, is to find growths before they turn cancerous.

The gold standard is colonoscopy, in which a long, thin tube equipped with a small video camera is snaked through the large intestine to view the lining. Any growth can be removed during the procedure. It involves sedation and a missed day of work, not to mention preparation that uses pills or liquids to clean out the bowel.

The study focused on CT colonography, also known as virtual colonoscopy. It's a super X-ray of the colon that is quicker, cheaper and easier on the patient than traditional colonoscopies.

It too requires the bowel clean-out and has a potentially serious drawback — radiation. Colonoscopies cost up to $3,000. The X-ray test costs $300 to $800; most insurers don't cover it so far, but Medicare is considering it.

Insurers likely will weigh the new study heavily in their coverage decisions, said Dr. Durado Brooks, who oversees colorectal and prostate cancer programs at the American Cancer Society.

Preliminary, unpublished data from the new study already helped persuade the cancer society and others to put out guidelines in March that added virtual colonoscopy and a stool DNA test to the recommended arsenal of screenings for colon cancer, Brooks said.

In the new study, both the standard colonoscopy and the X-ray test were given to 2,531 people at 15 U.S. medical centers. The scans showed large growths in about one in six people, although some were false alarms not confirmed by colonoscopy. Of the patients with growths verified by colonoscopy, 90 percent were flagged through the X-ray scans.

"That's very good news," said Dr. C. Daniel Johnson, the lead author of the study. He is a researcher at the Mayo Clinic campus in Scottsdale, Ariz., with financial ties to one virtual colonoscopy company, GE Healthcare.

Back to the false alarms — only one in four of those patients diagnosed with a growth actually had one, noted Dr. Robert Fletcher, a retired Harvard Medical School professor who wrote an editorial accompanying the study. He is a paid consultant for a company that makes a DNA screening test for colon cancer.

Some additional drawbacks to virtual colonoscopy:
_In about one in six of the patients, the X-ray found abnormalities outside the colon that led doctors to recommend additional testing or care. Some of those discoveries may be life-threatening, but others are not and investigation of them may prove expensive and hard on the patient, Fletcher wrote.
_The X-ray tests are not as good at colonoscopy at detecting flat growths on the colon wall that are more likely to be cancerous than the more familiar knobby polyps, according to other researchers.
_Virtual colonoscopies, currently recommended every five years, expose people to repeated doses of radiation. It's half the dose of a standard CT exam, but the cumulative effects are not yet known. Colonoscopy is only recommended every 10 years.
"These concerns do not rule out CT colonography as a screening test but they need to be considered," Fletcher wrote.

The study was not designed to look at whether the screenings prevented deaths.
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On the Net:
New England Journal:

http://nejm.org

Who knows.. This just might be available as an option by the time my next colonoscopy is due. Hopefully by then there are some better stats and the procedure is perfected.