We Found Something… Oh Wait, It’s Nothing.

When you have spent what feels like a lifetime searching for answers, you would know exactly what I mean by Results Day almost always being a let down.

You walk into the appointment with more fatigue, than hope.
Occasionally the Doctor surprises you with a “we found something!“, but that Something just turns out to be your body playing a trick on you.
That Something will disappear on the followup test, or it won’t be as bad as they initially thought.
The Something actually turns out to be one giant Nothing, and you fall back to square one.
All of the excitement your Doctor just experienced, turns into a “You might want to consider seeing a Psychologist”

I’ve done it before.
I have walked out of appointments, swearing I will never return, never have another test, never have another soul-draining conversation with a Doctor or Specialist.
But you and I also know that as much as we despise it, we go on because we have to.
We will always choose health over being unhealthy.
We will always want that one answer, that one management strategy, that one medication that keeps are symptoms at bay.

So, we do have hope.
But our little piece of hope is sealed in a box,
inside a giant vault,
buried in the ground,
with cement covering it.

It is the last piece we have left.
If we can’t get to it, it won’t break, but we know it is still there… hidden.

I have not heard “news” about my health in months. It was a diagnosis of a rare stomach condition, and then a lot of confusion as to why I was not responding to medication, and why my symptoms worsened rather than eased. I was told that there would be no more tests, that we had to learn to manage the unmanagable.

And all of this time I sat there thinking, you have missed something.

Well it turns out that they did miss something.

My recent bloodwork from last week showed an increase in my Amylase (Pancreas Levels). My levels had not been normal since July 2014.
I was tested four times from then until now, and they slowly rose from a normal rate of 50, to 88, to 110, and now at 125.
But nobody pointed it out, and I am unsure of why.
The top of the sheet says “abnormal” in big, bold letters.
Not hard to notice, darling.

As I am petite, don’t drink, don’t smoke, eat incredibly healthy, apparently the “we better keep an eye on this” should have begun around the 88 point mark which was last year when I was recovering from the Shingles Virus.

I worry that Doctors are becoming lazier with patients of Chronic Illness.
We request more tests, and maybe they honestly believe that it is “all in our minds” so they just take a quick glance over our results, instead of being more thorough.

So, it’s off for another Ultrasound and a Gastroscopy this weekend to get to the bottom of this Something they have found. My Doctor explained briefly that IF my Pancreas is inflamed, it could be causing my usual Gastroparesis symptoms to flare. Apparently Pancreas problems also cause nausea, stomach cramping, trouble digesting and pain.

Nobody predicts the Pancreas.

But if I’m being entirely honest, I doubt it is something as simple as my Pancreas being inflamed. It sounds too… easy. I don’t want to get too excited, because if I do and am let down, I fear that it may be the end of my sanity.

But here’s hoping that this Something is actually a Something.