When doctors become vampires

In the week since I posted, I've had blood work done twice.  Once on the 19th and once again on the 23rd.  The blood work was to check all sorts of things, such as hepatitis, my kidney enzymes, my liver enzymes, how well my blood clots, et cetera.  I had to return on the 23rd because one of the initial tests was supposed to reach the lab frozen and it had thawed by the time it got there, so they had to do it again.  The doctor had also ordered another test be done (nurse wouldn't tell me what it was) so that was drawn too.

I spoke briefly with Debbie, who seems to be the head nurse, and she told me the CT scan won't be booked until "they" receive all the blood work results.  So soon I should be hearing about that appointment and hopefully the liver cancer specialist appointment.  I am hoping to get them done a few days apart so I can get the CT scan, head to Winnipeg, see the specialist, and fly back here all in one excursion.  I imagine I will have to do some phoning around to get that set up.

Last night, my husband was beginning to find out how much of a fatalist I am, because in my mind I'm assuming the tumour is cancer. I told him I'm preparing for the worst. He said I should hope for the best. I said "No, you have to prepare for the worst. That way then they tell you it's not cancer you're almost upset." "Because you spent all that energy preparing?" "Yeah!" He facepalmed at that point.

I also told him yesterday that the 5 year success rate for early stage liver cancer is 50% (which means that 50% of people in the early stage live at LEAST 5 years).  That's if it was a single tumour which was removed, with no cirrhosis or other major health concerns.  He started freaking out at that.  He then decided that like Han Solo, he never wants to hear the odds.

Liver Tumour

I originally posted this to Facebook, but not everyone gets updates from Facebook so I am updating the blog for those who need to get caught up and do not want to scroll forever to find the information on my page.  I'm even backdating this to when I posted it to Facebook (17 Nov @ 9p Central)

So people know I had an MRI a couple weeks ago. I didn't exactly keep that secret to people I've talked with recently. I did not tell most people it was for my liver. I talked with the Dr yesterday and he told me there's a "small spot of accelerated cellular growth" in a "benign" area of the liver. For those of you who don't speak biology, that means I have a small tumour in my liver. However, he thinks it's a hepatocellular adenoma which are benign (i.e., non-cancerous).

Today I received a call from the same Dr and he is referring me to a hematologist-oncologist in Winnipeg which, for those trying to keep up, is a liver cancer specialist. He also had a bunch of blood work done and is booking me for a CT scan.

tl;dr I have a tumour in my liver, but I have NOT been diagnosed with cancer. But we're investigating to be certain.

DON'T PANIC. plzkthx

Mystery Package Clue #2 - A Trip To Mexico Goes Awry

Today I received a plain 6"x9" plain manila envelope. 

Inside were the following:

 

I'm pretty sure it's Cthulhu making people go insane and dying.  Norwegian Cthulhu.  Or something.

Mystery Package Clue #1 - The Norwegian comic page

I received a bright yellow business envelope addressed to me (no return address) and inside was this comic sheet in Norwegian and the post it note that is printed (despite looking hand written it is not). So far I've figured out the following:

Post It: Bratteli and Solberg are both Norwegian last names, not place names.

Comic front:
Panel 1: Do not scare the cat, Jens! He has not said a word in several days!
Panel 2: Is THIS what you saw?
Panel 3: IS it? *WHACK*

I included the back of the comic in case there are clues there. It's all in Norwegian and I haven't taken the time to translate it yet.

Sorry if the pages are ridiculously large on your screen.  I use a high resolution on my laptop and so the text was too small to read at smaller sizes.

Mystery Package Company

For my anniversary/Christmas/Birthday present, Andrew has signed me up with the Mystery Package Company  Every few weeks I get a "clue" that tells a larger story.  It could be a letter, it could be a parcel, it could be a crate.  He doesn't know what the story is, so it will be as much a mystery to him as it is to me.  I am going to post this to Facebook, but that can make it hard to keep track of everything and review what we've seen so far.  So I am also going to post it here! 

First post to follow...

We've been immortalized on the Internet.

So, when my husband and I are out and about we have some pretty strange conversations.  I always wondered if anyone paid attention and, quite frankly, hope that most of the time no one does.

That having been said, I'm pretty sure we had (almost) this exact same conversation at Wendy's once:


(I am waiting in line at a fast food restaurant. The couple behind me, who looks to be in their late twenties, are discussing their orders.)

Guy: “Have you tried the bacon, mushroom and Swiss cheese burger?”

Girl: “Yeah, it wasn’t bad, but I’m not a huge fan of mushrooms.”

Guy: *starts singing super quietly* “Mushroom! Mushroom!”

Girl: *also super quietly* “It’s a snake! A snaaaaaake! A snaaaaake!”

Both: “Badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger!”

(They then go back to their conversation about various menu items, completely normal.)

Source: http://notalwaysright.com/a-weebly-weird-conversation/27122

We may have been immortalized on the Internet.

Many moons later...

A long time has passed since my last post.  I ended up going off the low carb diet even though it made me feel great and gave me energy I've never before felt.  However, I decided i would try it again when we could better afford it.  Less than a month later, my fiancé lost his job and so we were reliant on only my income for most of the remainder of the year.  No low carb diet then.  When he finally found work, it was with a company called the North West Company which involves working up north.  He took the job and I was given the option to apply as well, which I did.  We were both offered supervisor positions and we are now living in Deer Lake, Ontario where we are training for our permanent location which has yet to be determined.  Well, originally we knew where we were going to be sent, but that has since changed and no set location has been determined for us at this time.  I thought/hoped that living in the north would make a low carb lifestyle easier, but it has proven to be even more difficult because of the sheer cost.  There are hardly any fruits or vegetables up here and all meat is frozen so it's hard to just cook up something when you get home after working 8-9 hours.  I mean, you can't just buy some fresh boneless chicken, cut it up, and sauté it in some sauce for supper.  Even when we have high protein meals, it's often accompanied by some sort of carbohydrate (e.g., honey garlic sauce).  Though now that I think about it, if we stopped drinking pop and used that money for meat/veggies instead, we might be able to pull off a low carb diet.  We will see.

For more information about our life in the north, be sure to check out our other blog at http://ournorthernlife.wordpress.com which is updated far more often than this blog.  There's not much to talk about in addition to what is posted on that blog so updates to this website may be sporadic.

Also, hello Russia!  I'm not sure why, but apparently most of the hits to this blog are from Russia.  :)  So yeah.. hi!