Whew.

After a week of worrying around the clock about my thyroglobulin levels, I finally got some answers on Friday and Saturday.

It was a two-fer:  one mistake made by the lab, one mistake made by the person in the office who read me my results.

WTF?

Mistake number one:  The lab never did the thyroglobulin test.  They did the thyroglobulin antibody test instead.  The lab slip said that the thyroglobulin test was supposed to be done.

Mistake number two:  The tech/person who read me the results told me that the number 20 was for the thyroglobulin, instead of the antibody thingie.  Turns out that a 20 on the antibody test is within the normal and/or negative range.

Dr. N called me on Saturday afternoon at 3:30, but I missed the call (that figures).  She basically told me about the mistakes, and that she only ordered the thyroglobulin because I was having bloodwork done--since it's been low from the start of this whole process, she's comfortable testing it once a year at this point.   My cholesterol numbers are finally in decent ranges, but I am on a statin for that.

It was a pretty crappy week--from Monday's initial phone call to Friday morning's follow-up call, my brain took lots of field trips into dark, scary corners.  I know I need to keep myself from going there, but it's so damn hard!  Monday and Tuesday were complete washouts.  I played quite a few rounds of Ruzzle.  In English, Spanish and French.

I can't get really mad because mistakes happen, and I can't blame Dr. N for the whole think because it wasn't her fault.  Still, it sucked.

So on a happy note, I'll keep going until the next appointment in the summer (I think).....

Nononononononono. Detectable?

Trying not to panic today.

Dr. N's nurse called me with the results of my bloodwork from last week.  "All your results are normal."
That's not good enough for me, so I always ask for the numbers to compare to the last round of bloodwork--I wanted to know if the statins had helped the cholesterol numbers, and they've definitely improved.  I guess she didn't test the cardiac reactive protein thingie--I forgot to photocopy the lab orders this time, so I'm not really sure what she tested.  How did I miss that?

Anyway, I asked her about the thyroglobulin.   "Oh.  It's 20."

Um, that doesn't sound undetectable to me, does it?  Last time it was 0.5, so jumping to 20 seems huge to me.  Right?

So now I'm waiting for Dr. N to call me back so I can ask her some more questions.  Of course I've been on the computer all afternoon looking for info about recurrence.  I've always understood that chances for recurrence are high, especially since the cancer metastasized to the lymph nodes.  The rise in thyroglobulin can just mean that there is thyroid tissue lurking somewhere in my system, but usually that probably indicates that the cancer is back, even microscopically.

Maybe the nurse made a mistake reading the report.  Maybe they realigned the normal range?  Maybe I have cancer again?  

I've pretty much lost today between searching and napping.  And I did eat some cake, so the gluten will add to the joy of my day.  Sigh.

Here's hoping Dr. N will call me back tonight....

Not much to report

This blog is turning into a monthly thing this year.

I think I know why--I discovered Pinterest.

What a huge time suck, but I like it!  There is some interesting stuff out there, but it's keeping me from my other interesting stuff.

Aside from spending time organizing my pins, school has been insane.  Just crazy. This time of year is always hard, but this year it's compounded by three snow days before vacation, and then I got three personal snow days thanks to a blizzard in Denver.  We spent vacation week in Colorado so we could surprise my brother-in-law at his 50th birthday party (which we did quite successfully), but a blizzard hit Denver the day we were due to fly home.  We didn't get home until Wednesday night.  It was a fun trip, but longer than expected.  We spent time in Colorado Springs, Golden and Boulder.  Lovely places with amazing scenery when it wasn't snowing--I had to buy a pair of snow boots!  (On clearance at a Bass outlet of course)

Gearing up for St. Patrick's Day and hoping to see Solas next Friday.  I love their new album, "Shamrock City", all about the Irish in Butte, Montana as well as immigration in general.  Love it.

Off to bed, might find more to write about later.