[La lamy]

Originally Posted by Velvet

Yep. After a routine blood test my doctor (who is an international expert) said I have Multiple myeloma. I had maybe 5 years left. I had two young children at home. I was so scared of this news I could not sleep, I could not eat, I could not go to work. Eventually I pulled myself together enough to get another opinion and went to the head of oncology at a very established hospital. This man was an incredibly compassionate man, he saw my degree of anxiety and took blood himself in his office and analyzed it. He made me wait in his office till we had the result. Then he said, “You don’t have MM, you are as healthy as I am.” Then I could actually breathe again. That was over 20 years ago.

That's a massive wakeup call for a second opinion when there's such dire news!

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

Originally Posted by jimjamuser

A good outcome to a tough experience. I find that those "near death" experiences change your life perspective considerably. You begin to think about things more broadly and philosophically. If it was a car accident, I would have been thinking about buying a large Hummer or some monster truck. There would probably be various life changes made.

The only concession to "safety" that I made was that I didn't buy a new moped, and I'm now a worse passenger than I used to be. I prefer doing the driving, whenever there's a trip involving more than one driver. The accident was caused by my best friend who was driving my moped with me on the back. We went the wrong way on a one-way side road into a major intersection without stopping. He broke his neck, suffered massive internal injuries, and died 4 days later. I had 2 weeks in the hospital and 6 months of intensive physical therapy.

My surgeon told me I would -probably- need a wheelchair by the time I was 40. I'm 59 and can still turn cartwheels (and I still do, on random occasions). I'm in some measure of pain 24/7 and don't take anything for it. But I'm still up, doing the twist while I clean shopping carts at the supermarket, and preparing for actually being retired some day when I grow up

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

The only concession to "safety" that I made was that I didn't buy a new moped, and I'm now a worse passenger than I used to be. I prefer doing the driving, whenever there's a trip involving more than one driver. The accident was caused by my best friend who was driving my moped with me on the back. We went the wrong way on a one-way side road into a major intersection without stopping. He broke his neck, suffered massive internal injuries, and died 4 days later. I had 2 weeks in the hospital and 6 months of intensive physical therapy.

My surgeon told me I would -probably- need a wheelchair by the time I was 40. I'm 59 and can still turn cartwheels (and I still do, on random occasions). I'm in some measure of pain 24/7 and don't take anything for it. But I'm still up, doing the twist while I clean shopping carts at the supermarket, and preparing for actually being retired some day when I grow up

Sorry that your friend is gone. Impressive story. I am glad that your recovery was so successful. Good job rejecting pain killers. In some cases they say that acupuncture helps for pain. I'm sure you know more about that than I do. I never could do cartwheels.

[Barborv]

A doctor once told me "Don't worry till there's something to worry about" And stop reading into things. (meaning self diagnosis)
I have had many scares in my life, some turning out fine , others not but treatable. From a brain tumor to bloodwork, etc. I also have a panic disorder when it comes to health and worry extensively. Trying to break out of that and it has gotten a lot better.
I don't like these patient portals for that reason. You read stuff that sounds like something bad and it turns out that it's nothing.