Trying to cope

Paul, my husband has PSA test results coming back this Friday and after a slight uptick from 0.01 to 0.02 in August this was going to be our first clue as to whether the uptick was a blip or a trend. It was making me anxious, more anxious than the last test.

Then today my coping skills were really put to the test. Paul got up yesterday with a strained neck. This morning the bottom front of his neck was swollen. He decided to go to the emergency room to check it out as his breathing was starting to get affected. The doctors spent the whole day trying to work out what was wrong with him. The initial concern was that fluid was pooling around his neck, so he could have an arterial tear. Then they thought the entire soft lump was a jugular vein with a clot in it causing a backlog of blood - it turns out that Paul's jugular veins are congenitally twisty which increases his risks for clots. The CT scan was supposed to provide answers but it puzzled the doctors even more - they were thinking maybe a soft tissue mass like a lipoma. I was making calls to my sister who is an internal medicine specialist who lives in NY while this was happening. She worked through the options and based on my description of the symptoms suggested it might be a lymph node cyst in the neck - very rare in healthy people - usually associated with radiation treatments or surgery in the area. And the doctors also came up with such a diagnosed.

So Paul needs to see a head and neck surgeon - the doctors hope their diagnosis is right because this is usually a benign condition. It may need surgery though - on the neck and that is scary. Their tentative diagnosis is lympoangioma of the neck.

It has been a tough year for Paul and me and we were going for a holiday in 12 days time to the Caribbean - a long way from Australia so it was cause for excitement. Now Paul feels bad it may need to be cancelled and I feel bad that he feels bad.

I am trying to cope with this, this diagnosis, the uncertainty of the diagnosis (the benign neck cyst, if it is that, is somehow a diagnosis I should be happy about in comparison to the alternatives but it may not be). In addition I am trying to psychologically brace myself for the PSA test results. I am trying to be strong but it is 3am and all I can think is how much I love my husband, and how scared I am for us.

And then I thought, my friends at healing well will understand. So here I am.

An

Like Andrew said, don't cancel your trip until the doctor tells you to. If you do make the trip you may be able to compare notes with the GFMPH Caribbean cruise contingent who will be finishing their cruise about the time you arrive. They are doing Mexico and the western Caribbean.

If his doctor does pull the plug on the Caribbean there's always Alaska in June. Lots of room left on the boat and I think the flight is shorter.

I hope this note finds you asleep. Worries are always worst in the wee* hours of the night.

Go to bed. We'll worry for you for a while.

*"Wee hours" a technical term referring to 3-5 AM when I generally have to get up to empty my bladder.