arguchik | sorry!

sorry to everyone who's waiting on my response to the meme thing. i haven't had much free time since posting that. this morning i had a "routine follow-up" appointment with the surgeon who did my appendectomy. it lasted 3 hours. the pathologist's report showed that i *didn't* have garden-variety appendicitis, but something potentially much more serious--but probably not. the surgery was probably curative, but they need to do a more careful and thorough follow-up.

for the medically inclined, i basically had a benign proliferation of mucosal cells in my appendix, along with a microperforation, meaning my appendix perforated, but the hole was too small (microscopic, actually) for the surgical team to detect. here's the latin, for the even more medically inclined (i.e. all the geeks out there): mucinous cystadenoma.

the pathology work-up did *not* show: mucinous cystadenocarcinoma, which is related to what i had, only cancerous. *nor* did it show: pseudomyxoma peritonei (mucosal cells and material in the abdominal cavity, which is apparently far more troublesome than mucosal cells and material inside of the appendix). oddly, this might be related to the ovarian cysts i've had before--and which i *thought* i was suffering from when i actually had appendicitis. (it feels about the same.)

so now i'm going to see 2 more docs: a gynecological oncologist (again, i don't have cancer, but this doc can help suss out the possible connections between what was going on in my appendix, and what has gone on with my ovaries in the past); and another surgeon who's apparently an expert on both the benign and the cancerous forms of what i had.

now i have to get back to work. 3-word witticisms will have to wait until this evening, i'm afraid!