{"id":756,"date":"2019-07-09T17:40:31","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T21:40:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/?p=756"},"modified":"2019-07-09T17:40:31","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T21:40:31","slug":"lab-results-are-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/?p=756","title":{"rendered":"Lab Results Are In"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On June 27th,  I returned to the doctor for the lab results of my nephroureterectomy.  I also had my catheter removed, which is a different discussion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m sorry for not posting the results right away.  It&#8217;s been hard to have a little less energy and not be able to share everything I think might be interesting or helpful for others going through the same type of thing. I really want to talk more about the day of surgery itself, the weird way I woke up in post-op, and more, but it seems hard to back-track and still move forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>So let&#8217;s just focus on the results for a minute. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>They were able to remove the ureter and kidney and do biopsies on them.  They found one carcinoma that was just under 5 cm (about 2 inches).  The rest came back as benign, and with no need for follow-up radiation or chemotherapy for now. <\/li><li>I will need to go back in about 3 months to have just follow-up labs done and confirm that the cancer did not develop in the bladder.  Then another check-up in 9 months, and then every year for good measure. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>So where am I at now? Well, here&#8217;s some info in a nutshell: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>My mom, who has been by my side through everything, putting her own life on hold, has returned home to SC.  Having her with me during the week was a huge help for Matt and I &#8211; but it would be selfish to have her stay any longer.  And let&#8217;s be honest, my mom is a powerhouse. So the more I recovered, the less there was for her to do &#8211; so she was going stir crazy. <\/li><li>I&#8217;m mostly back to work.  I worked remotely 2 days last week and then had a slight setback, but I&#8217;m back working remotely this week. I&#8217;m very grateful for the flexibility to do that as it has allowed me to continue on with my home health care. <\/li><li>My pain is manageable, it&#8217;s mostly discomfort at this point. I have 8 incisions, and 6 of them have healed well. 2 of them are located under my left breast, and unfortunately that means they don&#8217;t have the open air they need to heal properly. They continue to have some oozing and bleeding, so I went last week to have them cultured, and got put on some antibiotics. <\/li><li>My mobility game is on point.  I&#8217;ve graduated from using a walker to a cane for stability, although I mostly navigate around the house hands-free. Because of the issue with my feet to begin with, I won&#8217;t be running any marathons, but my in-home physical therapist has actually provided me with some exercises I can do from my chair to build up my stamina. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s enough information for now.  I&#8217;ve actually been staring at this blog post for days, adding a little more each day, because I&#8217;ve been letting it defeat me.  I&#8217;m hoping just getting past this hurdle will allow me to move forward with topics I&#8217;m interested in covering. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A brief update on the lab results and the current state of the body electric. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Lab Results Are In!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[152],"tags":[308,307,262,266],"class_list":["post-756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-road-to-recovery","tag-biopsy","tag-carcinoma","tag-kidney","tag-nephroureterectomy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/blood-samples.jpeg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2UnPK-cc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeywrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}