Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Oncology & possible Systemic Mastocytosis



I'm scared.


Tomorrow afternoon I have my first visit with an Oncologist. I'm going because my Allergist wants to rule out Systemic Mastocytosis/Mast Cell Disease (and perhaps even that insidious Leukemia.)

I don't have cancer. I think I could FEEL it, if I did.

However, we are ruling out these rare conditions because of the sheer number of anaphylactic/syncope/allergic reaction episodes that this body of mine has experienced in the past year.

I'm not scared of what might be, but rather of the testing itself. Bone marrow testing, apparently isn't very nice. Ok, apparently, despite local freezing, it's downright painful and awful. I have a fairly good threshold for pain. But, for some reason, THIS is terrifying me.

Elevated levels of histamine in my 24 hr urine sample and some funky tryptase levels, apparently, are cause for serious concern. I've tried to make light of this, but here I am, the night before...scared.

Why call it something else? Fear is fear.

1 comment:

Dawn Pongon said...

I have SM, just diagnosed so if you want a friend to listen to you, I am here. dpongon@comcast.net