arguchik | clean bill

had my CT scan this morning. dr. mann gave me the thumb's up--the CT scan looks clear. he recommends that i have yearly CT scans, but said every other year might be OK. he reiterated that i shouldn't just "walk away and do nothing," and that i should plan to have this kind of monitoring for the rest of my life. apparently he's had patients come in 14-15 years after having their appendices removed, now having "big problems" (i.e. advanced cases of pseudomyxoma peritonei or PMP).

while i was in the CT waiting area, i overheard a guy and his wife talking to a hospital volunteer. apparently the wife has had the PMP surgery awhile back (a year ago maybe?)--google "sugarbaker procedure" if you want to see the gory details. i can't write about it right now. it sounded pretty fucking awful. she looked terrible, frankly--thin as a rail, jaundiced, frail, careful about moving around too much... as i was leaving dr. mann's office in the UWMC surgery pavillion, i saw her in that waiting room. dr. mann is her doc too. he's like...the only doctor in the northwest (all the way down to northern california) with any experience treating this array of diseases.

:::sigh:::

annual CT scans, OK. if they catch it earlier than most of dr. mann's other patients, they might not have to be so invasive and aggressive. on the other hand, annual CT scans means i'm going to be exposed to a lot lot lot of radiation. i need to look into that, find out what the actual dose is, do a cost/benefit analysis, etc.