Little Orange Jug
Oh how I hate you
Little Orange Jug
Your presence I despise

You take up my weekend
Ruin my plans
But if diagnosis follows
I’ll consider you a friend.

Ah, yes, the wonderful medical homework one gets when one is trying to figure out what in the hell is wrong with one. Oh well, honestly I’m not all that irritated because, really, I just skipped 6 months of waiting and that’s not a bad thing.

A nurse called yesterday to tell me I had an appointment with the new endo… in April. (what is with me and april medical issues? some divine retribution for the birth process? anyway…) Also reported is that the o-scan decision was sent down to Shands to see if they would process the request (something about the insurance not denying their referrals as often as local ones? again, anyway…) So while I wasn’t incredibly thrilled by more waiting, there wasn’t much I could do about it (how Zen of me…)

1:14 and the phone rings. Its the new endo’s office, the dr has had a cancellation can I be there at 2pm? Sure! So I scurry out of the office to first go home to grab the Gianormous Binder of Research and Records then back to the hospital end of town to fill out paperwork and wait. And wait some more. And a little more waiting, but it’s okay, because Z finally saw me, we talked (he was not happy about how I ended up in his office, but he got over it) and then did the laundry list exam and then set up some tests.

A few things to note: He’s a chatty little guy and boy-o-boy you really have to listen hard to get the english around his spanish accent! He didn’t mind the amount of research I’d done, said it made his job easier since he didn’t have to explain as much to me. He has some concerns other than the carcinoid, but he’s testing for a spectrum of things this first round and then we might still need to wait and try again until we get biochem.results that will support imaging requests. But hey, he’s willing to work on it and I think (once I could get some words in edgewise) that I adequately convinced him I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get a concrete, treatable diagnoses.

The main hunch from him is either a Metabolic disorder or Cushing’s syndrome. After looking up the former, I don’t see that I’ve had those symptoms but hey, test away doc, but the Cushing’s I was planning to ask him about anyway as I do have some things in common with that possibility. Of course the latter issue brings us back to a tumor-issue and it can be a carcinoid tumor raising cortisol levels instead of serotonin (or both), that type of adrenal tumor can mimic the CS so again, we’re not too far away from the original idea. I only say that because then I don’t feel like I’ve wasted time researching something totally unapplicable. PCOS was also mentioned, in relation to the Cushing’s, but again, I’ve had no symptoms so… who knows???

But I’m happy with the progress that at least appears to be happening. Any theoretical plans I might have had for this weekend need to be altered a bit, but not so much, and two days of lab work and stuff next week might still lead to a hurry up and wait, but maybe these tests will point us in a working direction.