It's either written in my lucky stars or life isn't always fair. 2 weeks before our DR trip I started with a cough. No other symptoms but a cough. After 10 days the phlegmy cough was bugging me enough that I went to see a pcp. They listened to my lungs and it all sounded fine, so she sends me home and says to take mucinex 2 times per day until it resolves or come back if it's still going on after 6 weeks.
If you know me, you know that I rarely take conventional medications. I was raised on homeopathy, natural remedies, and that if you give your body the nutrients it needs and supplements, it can perform miracles on it's own. It's hard not to find the dark humor in that, because even though I live an organic and mostly clean life, cancer finds you. At this point I'm pretty desperate for some relief, and take the mucinex as prescribed. Nothing really resolves and the cough stays persistent and annoying. For some reason with the humidity in the DR it was much better, but upon returning to Colorado my cough was still there and worse.
I wait for the six weeks to go by and one morning I wake up with having a hard time taking a deep breath. At this point I'm concerned and go see a doctor right away. I get a chest X-ray that shows I have nodules on my lungs. Unfortunately, because of my history they can't ever rule out potential for cancer, and these nodules are not normal to typical pneumonia. Reading the radiology report is always beyond scary, especially when they refer me to get a CT scan. At this point I'm officially freaked out, and the only person I want to talk to is my oncologist. Even though Dr. Schubert is a gyno oncologist, she knows my anxiety around this whole thing and knows that her input is invaluable. She is able to fast track my CT scan since she is the chief of her department, and let's me know that she thinks I have an infection, but we should do the CT scan either way. The PCP gave me a round of antibiotics while we wait for the CT scan results.
I do the CT scan the following Monday and eagerly wait for the results. The antibiotics did absolutely nothing and I not only feel worse, but I feel week and tired to the point it's hard to lift my arm. I was also having chest pains, so as soon as I got the results from the CT scan I was able to get some answers. The CT scan said that it looks like I have multifocal organizing pneumonia (cryptogenic pneumonia), but it can't rule out that the nodules are from a cancer mestasis. The radiologist requests a follow up with another CT in 3 months. My oncologist thinks that I should see a pulmonologist. I feel like by the time I'm 50 I may meet all the specialty doctors out there 🙃
I was able to get an appointment with a pulmonologist for the following week, and in the mean time I was prescribed a low dose of prednisone. The prednisone was noticeably different and it seemed to actually be doing something to my body compared to the antibiotics. The appointment with the pulmonologist couldn't come soon enough since I was really hoping to feel my best when Victor made his appearance, and I didn't want anything else to rob me from time away from this experience.
Tuesday the 21st was my appointment with the pulmonologist, and now I'm having too much writing this word 😂. This is also the day that our GC ended up in the ER for contractions and the same day I was heading to the airport for Nevada. Talk about stress level. I enter the doctors room and he has my CT scan up on the big screen. He says that it looks like I have cryptogenic pneumonia, but he can't also rule out cancer without doing a biopsy. He goes over all my options. Option A: Do a lung biopsy. Option B: Do a dry needle aspiration biopsy which is less invasive but less accurate. Option C: Treat this for Cryptogenic Pneumonia with higher levels of prednisone, do a CT scan in 2 months and if the nodules on my chest have gone down then it is not cancer.
We discussed all the information given and based on his professional opinion we went with option C. Now what is Cryptogenic Pneumonia you may ask? Most people get infectious pneumonia which is an infection in the lungs that need to be treated by antibiotics. Cryptogenic Pneumonia is rare and it happens when your immune starts responding as if you have an infection but your don't. The prednisone (steroid) suppresses your immune response, so that way your body sees you don't have an infections and stops fighting as if you do, giving your body the chance to reduce the nodules in your lungs and end the pneumonia. The thing about prednisone is that you also can't stop the medication cold turkey because then your body might start doing the same thing again, so I will have to be slowly weaned off and make sure my body/immune system does not start to react. The side effects of prednisone are: headaches, nausea, irritability, mood swings, and insomnia....FUN 😫
It is unknown why people get cryptogenic pneumonia and around 5,000 people have it. But I will gladly be happy that this is my diagnosis vs the C word. I think once cancer has been around you or you've been personally effected by it, there is such a fear of something else happening, and you really think about how fragile life really is and your mortality. Luckily with my cervical cancer situation it was minor compared to what some people go through, but it's still terrifying to have to get checked every year and hold your breath that nothing else pops up. So when the CT scan mentioned possible cancer mestasis, it is hard to not have the fear that it's that instead of cryptogenic pneumonia. But this is when you have to have faith and trust in the science and that if the doctors were more concerned that it was something more serious, they would jump at doing the biopsy vs waiting out with the prednisone.
I've been on the higher dose of prednisone now for 1 week and it seems like I'm doing better. My cough has started to subside so I hope that's a good sign. My next CT is scheduled for January 15th, and I hope by then I will get great news and focus on just being a mom without any other crap clouding my life. Until then I just stay present and know that I can overcome anything and my own mind needs to stay strong because stress and anxiety doesn't help with anything.
Commentaires