You've got some spleening to do....

June 23, 2010

After hours of waiting to get into a room I was told that my transfusion was going to be put on hold for an hour so that they could perform the CT scan on my abdominal region.  I was so exhausted that I would have agreed to a rectal probe if it meant that someone....anyone would A) give me drugs to kill the pain or B) would give me something to knock me out so I could get some sleep.

Sadly I would be getting neither and thankfully no rectal probe necessary.

  Now that the nurses were sure that my PICC was working properly I was taken down to radiology for my test.  The actual test from start to finish took just under 15 minutes. but the techs were chatting with me so I didn't get taken back up to my room for another 15 minutes following its completion.

I was anxiously awaiting the results because the last I had been told of my spleen, was while I was at Tulane and the doctor advised me that my spleen and liver were enlarged but this was a normal occurrence in cancer patients.  It's good to know that I'm normal in some aspect of my well being, but normal or not this bitch hurts!

My spleen is located right close or just about under the lower left part of my rib cage.  Every breath I take elicits a sharp, electric shock type pain.  Sometime it feels like a rubber band popping when I take in deep breaths or move too quickly.  It's very unpleasant and has been getting increasingly worse as time has gone on.  Just a little background info on my spleen....this organ for which no one can really give me a concrete and valid explanation of what purpose it serves in the human anatomy has been causing trouble since before my diagnosis and its gut wrenching pain is what drove me to go to the ER which in turn saved my life because they found out I had leukemia and that I required immediate treatment. 

It's a double edged sword.  On one hand I'm thankful that I had this pain because it prompted me to get off my ass and go to the hospital.  But on the other hand....seriously, this organ has no real purpose other than to make my life painful and miserable.  So while I am grateful for its original round of death pain, I'd be more than happy to have it removed at this juncture.

The doctor came in later this afternoon and let me know that my liver is within normal limits but that my spleen was still enlarged.  I asked if there is anything that can be done to help ease the pain other than the obvious pain medications.  He said that unfortunately they cannot remove my spleen while I'm undergoing treatment because it would be to risky, unless of course my spleen ruptured and I became septic.  Great, I've got to wait for things to get worse before someone can make it better.  Ugh....fanfuckintastic!

Then my doctor tells me that there is a possibility that my spleen was dying.  I was like....huh....what....huh??  He just stood there with this matter of fact expression on his half masked face as if he had just told me they had pudding as the dessert on the lunch tray today.  I'm thinking there should be a little more feeling in a delivery about a possible dying organ.

Ummmm....you've got some explaining to do there doctor.  He continued, by telling me that in the event that the spleen could not continue to function and filter out toxins that it would begin to shut down and eventually die due to it being overwhelmed by the toxins that it should be filtering.  Basically my spleen is being suffocated by the toxins from my leukemia and the medications used to kill off the disease.

Well that sounds pretty horrible. 

Then of course my mind shifts to the idea that I could possibly have a dead organ just hanging out in my body.  I swear, I just once...just one time in my life, I would like a normal illness.  Seriously, how many people get diagnosed with Leukemia from going to the hospital because they think they are constipated and then later find out that their spleen, which was the initial reason for going to the hospital, could possibly be dying in my own cancer laden body? 

I look forward to hearing from someone...anyone that can beat this.  I'm not going to hold my breath while I wait for this to occur because I'm pretty sure I would die from asphyxiation and then where would my spleen be?