My doctor got me an appointment for the very next day to get the scanner and ultrasound done. Had I had any inkling of the news I would receive that day I would not have gone alone….
I get there shortly before 8am and I start to drink the white chalky scanner product, which is difficult because of the nausea I have to fight the urge to hurl. I go in about 45mns later, the technician administers the iodine takes his pics and he goes and gets the doctor (lab doctor not my GP) they chat awhile, while I lay there and wait, then they have me go to another room for the ultrasound (the doctor does this one himself) before he allows me to get dressed he asks me a few questions regarding my symptoms. So then I go back to the waiting room for the results and people come and go as the hours pass. I’m given another product to drink then I’m taken in to have and X-ray done. Now I’m getting worried no one is telling anything and it’s now almost noon. Finally the doctor calls me back in asks me once more about my symptoms and asks me if I ever broke out in cold sweats after having eaten, I say yes (up until this point I didn’t know that was a symptom). He also asked me if I drank, which I don’t so that was odd. He tells me they found something on the scanner, a mass, a tumor, an insulinoma, a tumor that is secreting insulin into my system.
He gave me the results (pictures and his findings), which I took back to my GP for further explanations and decision-making. The lab doctor had already called/faxed my GP with the results.
So my GP reconfirms what the lab doctor told me, the mass found was 2,4cm in diameter an insulinoma a pretty rare tumor.
Great! Of all the tumors I could have gone and gotten I had to get the ‘rare’ one. And to make matters worse I don’t fit the demographic for this type of cancer at all.
It usually occurs in men over 60, and in people who drink and smoke.
At this point I’m 29, female, don’t drink don’t smoke.
My GP was surprised at how well I took the news, but having my grandmothers on both sides of the family die from cancer, I knew I had a higher risk of getting it and ‘monitored’ myself did regular breast exams, pap smears and was just generally remained in tune with my body.
So my doctor tells me we can do one of two things: either treat it to shrink it or have it removed. That in most cases this type of tumor is malignant but there’s no way to tell for sure at this point. Now bare in mind I’m in the Caribbean and locally we don’t have the best hospitals. So doing anything locally was out of the question. He’d already called the Hospital in Martinique, which ranked 5th in France and they could not book my surgery right away.
I have to admit my first instinct was ‘great they can treat it and they won’t have to cut me open!’ But the more I researched it and the hospital itself (I have the choice between the hospital in Martinique and one in Guadeloupe I went with the better one) it made more sense to have it removed and over with.My surgery was finally scheduled for March 7th 2005, I was to check into the hospital on the 3rd. I flew over to Martinique on the 2nd stayed the night at the hotel and checked myself into the hospital the following day.
I get there shortly before 8am and I start to drink the white chalky scanner product, which is difficult because of the nausea I have to fight the urge to hurl. I go in about 45mns later, the technician administers the iodine takes his pics and he goes and gets the doctor (lab doctor not my GP) they chat awhile, while I lay there and wait, then they have me go to another room for the ultrasound (the doctor does this one himself) before he allows me to get dressed he asks me a few questions regarding my symptoms. So then I go back to the waiting room for the results and people come and go as the hours pass. I’m given another product to drink then I’m taken in to have and X-ray done. Now I’m getting worried no one is telling anything and it’s now almost noon. Finally the doctor calls me back in asks me once more about my symptoms and asks me if I ever broke out in cold sweats after having eaten, I say yes (up until this point I didn’t know that was a symptom). He also asked me if I drank, which I don’t so that was odd. He tells me they found something on the scanner, a mass, a tumor, an insulinoma, a tumor that is secreting insulin into my system.
He gave me the results (pictures and his findings), which I took back to my GP for further explanations and decision-making. The lab doctor had already called/faxed my GP with the results.
So my GP reconfirms what the lab doctor told me, the mass found was 2,4cm in diameter an insulinoma a pretty rare tumor.
Great! Of all the tumors I could have gone and gotten I had to get the ‘rare’ one. And to make matters worse I don’t fit the demographic for this type of cancer at all.
It usually occurs in men over 60, and in people who drink and smoke.
At this point I’m 29, female, don’t drink don’t smoke.
My GP was surprised at how well I took the news, but having my grandmothers on both sides of the family die from cancer, I knew I had a higher risk of getting it and ‘monitored’ myself did regular breast exams, pap smears and was just generally remained in tune with my body.
So my doctor tells me we can do one of two things: either treat it to shrink it or have it removed. That in most cases this type of tumor is malignant but there’s no way to tell for sure at this point. Now bare in mind I’m in the Caribbean and locally we don’t have the best hospitals. So doing anything locally was out of the question. He’d already called the Hospital in Martinique, which ranked 5th in France and they could not book my surgery right away.
I have to admit my first instinct was ‘great they can treat it and they won’t have to cut me open!’ But the more I researched it and the hospital itself (I have the choice between the hospital in Martinique and one in Guadeloupe I went with the better one) it made more sense to have it removed and over with.My surgery was finally scheduled for March 7th 2005, I was to check into the hospital on the 3rd. I flew over to Martinique on the 2nd stayed the night at the hotel and checked myself into the hospital the following day.
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