Five years ago, after months of investigating the source of severe fatigue and weight loss, my doctor discovered it all came down to a tiny growth on my pituitary gland - call it a microadenoma, if you want to impress your friends. Of course, all I heard was "brain tumor" when I was diagnosed. But the truth is, it's just a benign nubbin. A little extra tissue. Nothing to fear. So figuring that since I would probably live out the rest of my days with the doodad living in my noggin, I might as well name it. Something benign... like Bob.
In a similar scenario, my doctor has been investigating another mystery illness of mine for the last month - persistent nausea and unintentional weight loss - and incidentally came across another microadenoma on one of my adrenal glands. Neither my doctor nor I think this one is anything to fear either, but just to be sure I'm going to have another MRI performed in the coming days.
It's true what my dear, sweet grandfather used to say - If you go to a doctor, he's just going to find something wrong with you. In my case, I usually find out that I'm growing extra parts. My doctor says I'm just bumpy, but I feel more like one of those lab rats that researchers use to grow ears and such.
I haven't come up with a name for this little nodule; I think I'll wait until the MRI - sort of like waiting to name your baby until you've at least seen his or her little face on a sonogram. I'll take suggestions.
All levity aside, after multiple pregnancy tests, blood work, an MRI of my brain and a CT scan of my chest, abdomen and pelvis, all we've come up with is a UTI, a tiny kidney stone and this microadenoma, none of which explain my symptoms. I'm convinced the nausea and weight loss (which seems to have leveled off) are related to stress, as my husband and I are having a particularly tough time dealing with our toddler - let's just say the "terrible twos" are aptly named. I see a gastroenterologist Sept. 23. My primary doctor says he'll probably want to run a scope down my throat to take a look around, and I'm not too excited about those prospects. Could you pray that God would make it plain to my doctors what is going on in my body so that they can treat it properly? Thanks in advance!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Remembrances of 9/11
Nine years ago on Sept. 11 I was running a tad late for work. I can't remember why, but I can remember what it looked like when I walked into the newsroom at The C-J like it was yesterday. Every reporter, editor and copy editor were crowded around the three televisions mounted from the ceiling in the center of the room, jaws gaping, eyes wincing as they watched black smoke pour out of the side of one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City.
"A plane just flew into the World Trade Center," a coworker said in an update as I squeezed into the mix of newspeople strangely ignoring the stories they had been working on at their desks.
I saw the second plane careen into the other tower in disbelief. It wasn't an accident.
The phones weren't ringing off the hook as usual, or at least only the clerks were hearing them. The rest of us weren't about to take our eyes off the screens. It seems like we stood there for hours, but I know that can't be true because we had a paper to put out, and now we had a special edition to crank out on top of that. But I remember shouting back to editors as updates shot across the bottom of the screen about a third plane crashing into the Pentagon and yet another into a field in Pennsylvania. Our country was under attack, and while I wondered where the terrorists would strike next I was never so glad to live in Kentucky, an unlikely target. But I knew I'd never be the same, never feel as safe.
As I monitored network news stations all day it seems like I watched those planes smash into the twin towers a hundred times, and by evening the stations had voice mail recordings from husbands and wives, sons and daughters saying their last goodbyes as they waited for the inevitable inside the burning buildings. I wondered about all of those families holding out to hear from loved ones unaccounted for; the policemen, firemen and average Joes who went to their deaths trying to save people who were trapped; all those daycare children who never had a chance to grow up. In the harsh flicker of my television, I sat there alone on my couch until 2 a.m., still too scared to go to sleep but I just couldn't cry anymore.
One other remembrance from that day nine years ago: on my way home from work that night I came to a red light at the corner of Dutchmann's Lane and Breckinridge - always a busy intersection notorious for traffic congestion and fender benders - and saw something I'd never seen before that provided probably the only happy tears I produced that day. A middle-aged man stood in the median waving a huge American flag as cars whizzed by, many of them honking in support and a flood of patriotism. God bless that man because I desperately needed a lift in that moment. We all did.
In the months that followed I saw similar displays of patriotism - flags posted outside many doorsteps in any given neighborhood and a general sense of pride in what this country is about.
Today I don't see so many flags and I hear more negative sentiments about our country than positive. We're divided more than ever. Collectively, we don't look to God to restore us. And this just makes my heart sink.
"A plane just flew into the World Trade Center," a coworker said in an update as I squeezed into the mix of newspeople strangely ignoring the stories they had been working on at their desks.
I saw the second plane careen into the other tower in disbelief. It wasn't an accident.
The phones weren't ringing off the hook as usual, or at least only the clerks were hearing them. The rest of us weren't about to take our eyes off the screens. It seems like we stood there for hours, but I know that can't be true because we had a paper to put out, and now we had a special edition to crank out on top of that. But I remember shouting back to editors as updates shot across the bottom of the screen about a third plane crashing into the Pentagon and yet another into a field in Pennsylvania. Our country was under attack, and while I wondered where the terrorists would strike next I was never so glad to live in Kentucky, an unlikely target. But I knew I'd never be the same, never feel as safe.
As I monitored network news stations all day it seems like I watched those planes smash into the twin towers a hundred times, and by evening the stations had voice mail recordings from husbands and wives, sons and daughters saying their last goodbyes as they waited for the inevitable inside the burning buildings. I wondered about all of those families holding out to hear from loved ones unaccounted for; the policemen, firemen and average Joes who went to their deaths trying to save people who were trapped; all those daycare children who never had a chance to grow up. In the harsh flicker of my television, I sat there alone on my couch until 2 a.m., still too scared to go to sleep but I just couldn't cry anymore.
One other remembrance from that day nine years ago: on my way home from work that night I came to a red light at the corner of Dutchmann's Lane and Breckinridge - always a busy intersection notorious for traffic congestion and fender benders - and saw something I'd never seen before that provided probably the only happy tears I produced that day. A middle-aged man stood in the median waving a huge American flag as cars whizzed by, many of them honking in support and a flood of patriotism. God bless that man because I desperately needed a lift in that moment. We all did.
In the months that followed I saw similar displays of patriotism - flags posted outside many doorsteps in any given neighborhood and a general sense of pride in what this country is about.
Today I don't see so many flags and I hear more negative sentiments about our country than positive. We're divided more than ever. Collectively, we don't look to God to restore us. And this just makes my heart sink.
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