Hi.. I am new to this website. My new I mean I have never signed up till now but I have read some posts on here before. I have had severe health anxiety since my cousins diagnosis of testicular cancer 2 years ago. That coincided with the birth of my son and put post natal depression and that together l, you can imagine the huge explosion of anxiety I have carried with me for two years. Over the course of the last two years due to my health anxiety, I have had numerous health worries from top to toe. None of them ever turned out to be anything bad.
However, almost my worst nightmare was about to come true the last couple months. I was having green stool, stomach pain, reflux and loose stool so I ended up having an ultrasound scan of the abdomen. I knew they found something because the radiologist just kept going over the same spot over and over. I went back into my doctors office and he said I now need an abdominal and pelvic ct scan. I can’t even begin to tell you the fear and anxiety I had. The following morning I got the ct scan and saw the doctor. He said they found a mass inbetween my stomach and pancreas. Good news was that it was round and well circumscribed and not attached to anything. However I would now need an MRI, endoscopy with a biopsy and a pet scan to see if there was any biological activity present.
A few days later I had the MRI and the radiologist thought it might be something called an accessory spleen. So I now had to have a technetium 99m red blood cell scan to see if it was spleen. If it was then they would leave me go. However it wasn’t. So following that I had a PET/CT scan.. then I had the endoscopy and biopsy. The fna revealed no cancer cells and possible diagnosis of a leiomyoma which is basically a fibroid. The surgeon said I needed to have it fully out and sent to pathology for a definitive diagnosis. My surgery was keyhole and I had it 3 weeks ago. It was sent to pathology and they said no cancer cells were found but they don’t know what it is but that they were sure it was benign.
As you can imagine that is a huge relief for me. But I am still not able to close the door on this, not knowing my diagnosis, what caused this etc.
The other huge fear I have is all the radiation I have had. It’s killing me to think this probably will now cause cancer years down the line. Can someone please give me something positive out of all the hell i have been through. I really am desperate and feeling quite suicidal. I know I should be so grateful and I am but I am severely traumatized by it all.
I also wanted to post my story on here because it shows the danger of our health anxiety. Going for scans etc all the time to reassure ourself isn’t always wise as these incidental findings do come up and once doctors find them they don’t let go. The doctor thinks the mass was never causing me any problems and was just incidental.
Sorry for the long post but I am just looking for some support and positivity. No one felse knows what I’m really going through.... many thanks.