The Electric

OK, three weeks of waiting to see what kind of tumor you might have is never fun. I stress eat just about anything I could find. I was irritable.

I told a coworker who’s husband is dealing with cancer and she gave me a lay blessing on my forehead with the sign of the cross. I went to a healing service at church and had a blessing with oil given by my pastor.

I played with John and even picked out and ordered a new computer while keeping one eye on the calendar. I started my class at Franklin but couldn’t get into it the first week since I didn’t know if I would have to drop it due to the knee.

So when it came time to roll into the Doctor’s office, I almost wanted it to be bad news with the logic that the waiting had put me in that ‘pissed at the world place’ and just needed to have my reason vetted. Plus that hypocondraic in me didn’t want all this to be for nothing.

Twisted isn’t it.

Yet nothing is what it was. I have a cyst. Thanks to the MRI, it showed that there isn’t anything to do aside from a little PT, a bunch of weight loss and some anti-inflammatories from time to time.

The black cloud of doom broke to the sunshine. Jean and I thanked God. Then the crash of three weeks worth of worry came. It left me irritable. My guess it’s due to the sugar withdraw as I go back on my eating plan.

Today I had an MRI done on both my knees. Why? About a month ago I fell while helping my brother-in-law build his deck and while my knees have always been crappy, the left knee which took the hit still wasn’t doing much better after a few weeks.

So after getting the name of an orthopedic doctor, Dr. Tim Duffey, from my podiatrist, I headed down for the exam. Dr. Duffey’s GP did the first check and noticed that both of my knees made these nice cracking sounds when she tested my range of motion. Next was x-rays in just about every position know to man. After reviewing the film, Dr. Duffey came in and asked shortly after introducing himself if I had ever had an MRI?

At this point I’m thinking the worst thing that could happen is the scope. What I didn’t think of was what came next, the word Tumor.

See my knees are still growing. That’s not a good thing. So here are my odds 98% benign 1% Malignant from a cancer someplace else in the body 1% Rare bone cancer

So I was rolled into an MRI machine to have scans on both knees.

The MRI wasn’t quite what I thought it would be like. I was expecting jackhammer like pounding. It was more like a very long and loud whirling noise. Jean brought some magazines to read to me but it was so steady, I ended up with just the headphones.

The only discomfort came when my left butt cheek started to cramp. But since my head wasn’t in the machine, this is a prefectly fine trade off.

I was handed my films and then the waiting started…

Warning to all those working with me. My back is stiff which means unhappy geek. Approach at your own risk.

I write with one finger wraped in gauze since it was just whacked to draw blood for a glucose experament I’m apart of.

After resting for 30 minutes then testing my baseline blood sugar after a overnight fast, I eat a baggy of rasins and then get my finger stuck every 15 minutes to mesure the effect for the first 2 hours post rasins and then 30 minutes after that until we hit the 3 hour mark since gulping down the snack.

The dance in the lab is… Run finger under warm water while Yeonsoon Kim, who is conducting the study as part of her PH.D work, readies the test.

Wipe finger off with paper towel Yeonsoon then wipes the finger with an alcohol pad Whack Yeonsoon then milks the blood from my finger I reset timer to 15 miuntes Wait for timer to go off while working on the computer Repeat until we reach an hour. For the next two hours, I get whacked once each half hour.

So what are my results?

Glucose test beverage
Minutes Blood Glucose (mg/dl)
0 103.5 15 98.1 30 136.5 45 173.2 60 182.7 90 173.8 120 105.1 150 81.63 180 73.26

Minutes Blood Glucose (mg/dl) 0 99.81 15 121.5 30 129.78 45 121.77 60 118.08 90 116.1 120 105.48 150 100.35 180 99