Health Update

I'm happy to report that I'm about 90% over my cold that I caught from Gaetano. He's about 80% better with a cough and congestion still lingering.

At the begining of this month, I had a chest x-ray done because I was experiencing some pain on my right rib cage. When I inhaled it was obvious that my right side was very different. A lump could be felt along my rib cage where it hurt. As it turned out, I had disturbed a floating rib and it was out of place. In time it will heal itself and already is much better.

While looking at the x-ray, Dr. Del Campo noticed something unusual. He spotted several splinters of calcium along my rib cage. With a thyroid history and remaining nodule (goiter) in my neck, the recent gall stones, and the osteochondroma on my leg his suspicion was that my parathyroid was functioning abnormally. The parathyroid controls calcium, an ingredient found in gall stones and in the bone growth that I had.

He scheduled some blood work and a P.E.T. Scan. My blood results came back normal, much to my surprise. I thought for sure that he'd finally found the missing link -- the cause of all my health problems. No such luck... The P.E.T. Scan was put off because the hospital felt it was unlikely my insurance would cover it, so Dr. Del Campo ordered a bone scan.

When I got the news that I needed to schedule the bone scan I was on my way out and didn't ask any questions. I figured I'd have time to ask later. Unfortunately, their office is closed until Monday, January 5th. Naturally, I turned to Google for help.

I've come to find out that bone scans are used to test for bone infections (osteomyelitis), bone tumors, hairline fractures, and bone cancer. The results don't tell them which of these are present, just that there is one (or more) of them.

If they are testing for osteomyelitis, then the bone scan is done immediately after the injection of the radionucleide. Otherwise the patient (that's me!) returns after 3 hours for the scan. Well, my appointment for the injection is tomorrow at 10:30 am and I return for the scan osteochondroma), at 2 pm. I can only conclude that they're not testing me for osteochondroma. That leaves bone tumor and bone cancer. Bone fracture is not a candidate since I've had no trauma and there's obviously something growing on my ribs.

Nervous? Scared? Worried? You betcha... I'm only 28 years old and too young to have any of the problems I've already had let alone anything else.

Posted by ~Angela | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Permalink