Clarification

I've gotten several e-mails and calls from my blog readers wanting to know exactly what's going on with me medically. I guess I get a little side tracked when writing---or try to avoid the subject---and don't really even realize it. Here's some clarification for all of you! Hopefully this is easier to understand! :)

1) About mid-December my right leg started hurting really bad. It felt like a bad growing pain, but since I wasn't getting any taller, I assumed it was from too much running/exercise. Before the pain started, I was running between 6-7 miles a day, so I thought it was from that.

2) The pain persisted and got worse and I finally decided to go to the doctor for the first time mid-January. The doctor took an X-Ray, which was normal, and sent me on my way with Vicodin.

3) The Vicodin hardly took care of the pain. Back to the doctor I went and he requested an "Urgent MRI." He told us he thought it was a torn meniscus, which wouldn't show up on an X-Ray, so that's why I needed the MRI.

4) Nurse from doctors office calls. Request for the "urgent MRI" was denied by the insurance company. Insurance company says to take ibuprofen for 4 weeks and ice it. What the hell! The doctor had already given me Vicodin...it was a little more than just an ibuprofen thing!

5) I have to go back to the doctor to get another request for an MRI. (Side note: health care is so messed up. I had to go to the doctor about 5 times for the SAME thing before anything got done. It's crazy!!)

6) We find out at the doctors appointment that the doc who requested the MRI only put "knee pain" in the dictation. Nothing about me already having 2 X-Rays, nothing about the pain.

7) New doctor re-requests MRI with proper dictation, takes 4 or 5 days to get appointment. Have MRI on a Saturday night at 9:30 pm at the hospital.

8) Go back to doctor to get results and see what I can do about pain. At this point, it was getting to be so bad, I had to use crutches. He walks in the door saying, "MRI is normal!" I was a little excited, but more let down than anything. I thought for sure it was going to be a torn meniscus and it would be a quick surgery and I'd be done with all of this. He then gave me another exam...he probably thought all of this was in my head since all the tests were normal! He touched a part of my leg and I screamed so loud I probably woke the crazy people on the 7th floor up! Right then he said, "I can't do anything else for you...you need to go see an orthopedic surgeon."

9) Call Pacific Surgical Institute to make appointment. First appointment: end of February. I know everyone thinks they're in need of immediate attention, but I really was. I could barley walk, could barley work...I was suffering! I explained to the lady I talked to the situation, she talked to the doctor, and I had an appointment 2 days after that.

10) My appointment was on Friday, Januray 25th with Dr. Kretzler. I am so thankful I was able to get in and see him. As Dr. Conrad, my doctor at UW said, "he's a smart cookie." Dr. Kretzler walked in the room and didn't even give me an exam. I kept thinking this was just another appointment where nothing would get solved. Wrong. He wanted us to see my MRI. I thought maybe it was a torn meniscus, but while he was waiting for it to pull up, he said that my MRI was definitely NOT NORMAL and he wasn't sure how the radiologist had overlooked it, being that the radiologist report in his hand said "normal." I could feel my heart pounding...I didn't want to hear what he was going to say. I was totally crushed. He had another doctor look at it while I was having blood work done and they concluded that I needed to be seen at the University of Washington ASAP. Holy shit! I knew it was bad if what they saw couldn't be treated by anyone in southwest Washington!

11) My family and I spend all weekend terrified. He told us to be ready to pack our bags and leave for Seattle on Sunday because they thought my appointment would be first thing Monday morning. He mentioned lymphoma, malignant tumor, benign tumor as what it could possibly be. Google and YouTube were my evil friends all weekend as I researched every combination of these things. Not a good idea!

12) I continued to work the following week because we found out my appointment in Seattle wouldn't be until the following Monday. Great news, right?! That meant that Dr. Conrad had looked everything over and determined I wasn't as urgent as Dr. Kretzler had thought! Wrong.

13) We showed up in Seattle on Monday, February 11 for my first appointment with Dr. Conrad. He walked into the room and Kim, mom, dad and Joe were all in the room with me. We were so scared! First thing he said, "I don't even know what's going on...I haven't even looked at the MRI yet." Well shit! If we had known that we hadn't gotten our hopes up! So it was back to square one. He pulled the MRI up and immediately saw something. The bottom part of my femur was all white, which most likely meant a tumor. He told us all he didn't think it was benign, but even with it being cancer, I would recover just fine at my age. He said they would cut the bottom part of my femur off, replace it with a rod and I'd get an entire new knee. Great. A fake knee at 24? Awesome. He said there was also a small chance of it being an infection, but he said that would be very unusual.

14) He makes my appointment for biopsy on that Thursday and says we need to be up there on Wednesday for my pre-op appointment.

15) We go up to Seattle on Wednesday, go to my appointment and then have dinner at Aunt Lynda's. I had to be at the hospital at 5:30 the next morning.

16) Thursday morning I have surgery. Before going in, he had told us that he was pretty sure he would be able to tell what it was after. Wrong again. He said it wasn't an obvious cancerous tumor, wasn't an obvious benign tumor and it didn't really look like an infection. Shiiiiiit. Seriously. I think I may go down as being the most odd patient he's ever seen! He's one of the best and he doesn't know what's wrong? They made three incisions on my right leg. Two on the side and one on the back where my knee bends. The took three or four vials of bone and sent it to pathology. I was in SO much pain from the surgery I didn't think I would ever be myself again! Luckily that went away after about a week, but the pain I had before is back and still going strong. Wheelchair or crutches....that's how I roll.

17) I called the nurse to get results while I was in Hawaii and got a call back saying they'd like to wait until they see me in clinic on the 3rd. Is that good or bad? I'm hoping for the best but planning for the worst.

So that's it. There's three possibilities. It's either a benign tumor (slim chance says doc), a cancerous sarcoma (most likely) or an infection (rare). If it's the "C" word, I'll have to start chemo/radiation and all that not-so-fun stuff. If it's an infection, I'll have to have strong medication given to me 24/7 through an IV for about 3 months. I've researched about such infections and found out that during this time, bed rest is suggested. M-I-S-E-R-A-B-L-E.

I have my appointment at Monday at UW at 1. Think positive thoughts and keep praying/crossing your fingers/whatever you do. I need it!

Happy Friday,
Katie