Leah’s Cafe

My parents’ house is  an hour drive to downtown. We took an early lunch and left the house after lunch to go to this Chinese herbalist and acupuncturist. There was a long line and mom waited for two hours to see the “doctor”.

This Chinese herbalist doesn’t use the traditional herbs that need to cook for long hours, the doctor actually gave her some herbal medications in pill forms! He recommended her to see the acupuncturist at the same building to expedite the recovery.

Mom thinks the acupuncture helps and she feels less pain after the half an hour session. So, we are going back tomorrow for another session.

Mom’s leg pain hasn’t improved but worsen after the tour of hospital. At first she refused to go back to see the orthopedic. I have to bluff her that taking an X-ray wouldn’t cost much though she was going for MRI that cost 1k!

The MRI showed the disc between two of the bones on the spine (L5 and S1) has extruded and pressed against the nerves. The nerves happened to be the ones that control the leg movement. That’s why mom has been having leg pain. The extrusion is actually quite bad and the only way to repair such condition is going for a surgery according to the orthopedic.

The orthopedic said there is no medication to cure this kind of problem, he can only give pain killer for pain relief. Since mom is not keen to go for surgery and it may be a while for the pharmaceutical companies to come out with the right drugs for this kind of health problem, we will bring her to try some alternative medicine in the next few weeks i.e. acupuncture, Chinese herbals and chiropractic .

It’s a hard lesson learned: driving a car with the stick gear without power steering uses your abdominal muscles a lot. How do I know? I could feel the pull and the tension every time when force is exerted to change gears or turning the steering!

Could even feel it right there, the wounds are hurting. Not to mention the after effect - I have been suffering from pelvic pain and back ache ever since I drove around town to run errands the other day! Well, the wounds outside may seem to be completely healed, but the inside is still healing, any heroic acts can still cause pain that keeps me awake at night. My mother would say: “See, I told you so!”. :-)

Since I have taken every scopes and tests under the sun to identify malignancy and found none. Dr Eugene, the O & G suggested taking a second look at the pathologist’s report. He got me the slides and our oncologist friend wrote us a referral letter. The slides were sent to another pathologist at another hospital for second opinion.

The second pathologist’s report came back today, it didn’t mention anything worth further investigation! That means the first pathologist might have read too much and/or over analyzed the elements he saw on the slides!

Thank god it’s just a cancer scare!

It’s unlikely a common practice, but thank god for Dr Eugene who cares about the best interest of his patient, for voluntarily suggested getting me the slides to go get a second opinion. I believe it’s through divine intervention and the power of many prayers that changed and turned the outcome of this, thus keep me from going for another surgery to remove the left ovary as diagnostic and preventive measure, which is unnecessary in due of the second pathologist’s report.

I am very thankful that it’s not the real thing, just a scare that burnt a hole in my pocket and kept me busy running around for three weeks!

Today I went for the scheduled colonoscopy and gastroscopy.

I have to start the preparation yesterday. The gastro specialist gave me some phosphate soda, it caused me going toilet 6-7 times after an hour of taking the solutions. I had to take it once last night and another time this morning.

My dad drove me to the doctor’s office since I would be put on sedative and not suitable to drive after the procedure. The colonoscopy and gastroscopy procedures only took about 10-15 minutes, but had to wait for one and half hours for the doctor, even with an appointment!

We can see the inner lining of the digestive tract  on a CCTV when a fiber optic camera passed through it. Nothing unusual was  found, except for a small ulcer in the stomach, this probably in a great extend rule out the possibility of colon cancer!!

Right after the scope, before the doctor typed out a report, I rushed down to the cafe at the hospital, had a bowl of beehoon soup. Really exhausted and hungry after all the purging!!

Went to meet up our oncologist friend at his office. He looked at the pathology reports and CT scan results. He gave me a few advice, one of them is to check out the colon and if possible the whole digestive tract. Since both the gynecologists suggested that I check out the colon, I am going ahead for a colonoscopy and gatroscopy this coming Tuesday on the 22nd.

The second gynecologist and our oncologist friend thinks removing the left ovary (like the first gynecologist Dr Eugene suggested) is a bit too drastic when there is no evidence of malignancy. He thinks further screening to rule out other possibilities and close monitoring of the hard cells on the left ovary plus tumor marker tests every other month would be more appropriate.

This is going like a roller coaster ride, one minute I am convinced that going for another surgery to remove the left ovary is the best thing to do, the next minute, it seems there is really nothing to worry about. Of course, I pray that all these are just false alarms, a cancer scare, instead of the real stuff!!

I talked to the oncologist friend at the bible study tonight about the O & G’s suggestion of seeing a gatro specialist and to do the colonoscopy. Though his family are going for a family vacation on Saturday, he is kind enough to schedule an immediate appointment for me.

He asked me to go to see him at his office at 10 a.m Saturday morning, so he can look at the pathological reports, the CT scan and advise me accordingly. I am really grateful for this kind gesture. The other four doctors in the bible study group also prayed for me.  I have informed Jo, the group leader’s wife earlier, so in fact they have been praying for me all along.

Since the O & G Dr Eugene at UMSC who did the previous surgery suggested another surgery to remove the left ovary as a diagnostic and preventive measure, I went to see another O & G yesterday, for second opinion. I am glad I did, because the second doctor told me something that I was not aware of and the first doctor didn’t mention.

Since both the O & Gs advised me to check out the colon (the biopsy expressed CEA, a color cancer tumor marker), so I went to see a gastro specialist and made an appointment for a colonoscopy and possibly gatroscopy on Tuesday.

Both the O & Gs also agreed that the PCOS may be the root of my hormonal and acne problems. No need any acne treatment, just need to keep the PCOS problem under control!