Is it over yet?

Somehow I go off track and never finished my funny/sad little story of how falling out of the shower turned into a summer of medical fun!

Anyway, after determining that a mass in my lower back was causing me to pass out we could not find a doctor in Fort Worth who was willing to take on a case that looked like spinal surgery was the next step.  So, they loaded me up in an ambulance and drove me to Baylor Medical Center in Dallas.  I'll be honest, I was not so excited about being further away from home, but I was pumped about being someplace associated with Baylor!  

My sister and my friend, Haley, volunteered to spend the night with me that first night in Dallas.  It turned out to be quite a doozy.  I was awoken in the middle of the night multiple times to be asked ridiculous questions.  One doctor was there to treat me for my asthma (pretty sure I don't have asthma nor was I complaining of not being able to breathe).  The nurse woke me up to start an IV that wasn't even hooked up to anything.  To say it was a long night would be the greatest of understatements.  I desperately wanted a chest x-ray performed so that they could begin using my PICC line instead of poking me a hundred times a day, so imagine my frustration when they woke me up again early in the morning to take me down to radiology for...an ultrasound.  An ultrasound??  Why did I need an ultrasound??  

The poor little ultrasound tech had to listen to me question every order that was in my chart until I finally convinced her to take me right on over to get that chest x-ray instead of returning to my room.  By the time I made it back to my room I felt as if someone had poured itching powder all over me.  As far as I knew, this hospital sucked and I was done.  I texted my Mom and told her not to let Dad park the car and we would be leaving as soon as they got there.  I also insisted on putting my Harris hospital gown back on because someone had done something to the Baylor one.  My Mom arrived and the nurse brought me a Xanax.

The next several days went something like this...nothing happened!  I just sat there all day hoping it would be the day that something happened.  But it never did.  Finally we had waited long enough, they did biopsies, and aspirations and I was feeling well enough to be released from the hospital.  I spent the next several days sleeping, laying around, and trying to get back to normal.  About a week later my Mom and I drove to Dallas to see the Orthopedic Oncologist.  This is when I started my new, least favorite past time...waiting at the doctor's office!  Once we made it back to see the very nice doctor, he informed us that the very painful needle biopsy that was performed in the hospital did not get enough tissue to determine exactly what this mass was.  So, I would get to do it all again, this time they'd go ahead and cut me open to get a better look!  Yay!

The open biopsy was performed and we waited another two weeks before driving back to Dallas to get the results and hopefully be able to make a plan that would keep this all from happening again.  The good doctor gave us the good news that while there was a fairly large mass near my spine it was completely benign.  He officially diagnosed it as hemangioma.  We had originally discussed that we would begin a process called serial embolization to kill the hemangioma and cause it to shrink.  Once we had the actual diagnosis though, the doctor felt it would be best to just watch it for awhile with MRIs and CT scans and then re-evaluate the situation.  

No cancer, no surgery, no medicine...sounds like a plan to me!  I was feeling better everyday and was so relieved that things seemed to be back to normal before the new school year began!

I wish that was the end...and it totally was at the time I wrote that first post...unfortunately, that was just the beginning.