my longtime friend's fiance just found out he has stage 4 cancer and 6 months to live

[reprise85]

life is fucked up

routine blood tests showed he had diabeties, and when they did some kind of further test they discovered the cancer. he had no symptoms.

seriously, fuck you life.

[Order 66]

its about time for my annual blood work. not looking forward to it

i mean how could there NOT be something fucked up with me at this point

but yeah. it sucks when it happens to somebody you know... the last person in my life to get cancer was my aunt and thta was 13 years ago. so the reaper is due to swoop in at any moment, i'm sure

[reprise85]

i just had mine. everything is perfect except my triglcerides are 2 points into elevated range. considering my weight, that's pretty good. i didnt get the numbers yet, but im going to compare it to my one from last year with my old doctor (records are online)... pretty sure my triglcerides were really high... fish oil works perhaps?

oh, and alkaline phosphatase. it's always high, and no one has every given me a reason or seemed bothered by it and i was always passive about it. going to retake it. last doc told me it's probably a medication side effect but im pretty sure they can find out for sure. i dont have any liver disease like hep c or anything, they checked for a bunch of liver diseases. wikipedia says a lot of scary shit but surely they would have told me at my last doc if if there was any chance of anything like that. right?

oh they also said i have some allergy markers in my blood and can do allergy testing if i want.

[Starla]

Sorry to hear. It truly is a punch in the gut when you get news like this.

[Starla]

Originally Posted by reprise85

i just had mine. everything is perfect except my triglcerides are 2 points into elevated range. considering my weight, that's pretty good. i didnt get the numbers yet, but im going to compare it to my one from last year with my old doctor (records are online)... pretty sure my triglcerides were really high... fish oil works perhaps?

oh, and alkaline phosphatase. it's always high, and no one has every given me a reason or seemed bothered by it and i was always passive about it. going to retake it. last doc told me it's probably a medication side effect but im pretty sure they can find out for sure. i dont have any liver disease like hep c or anything, they checked for a bunch of liver diseases. wikipedia says a lot of scary shit but surely they would have told me at my last doc if if there was any chance of anything like that. right?

oh they also said i have some allergy markers in my blood and can do allergy testing if i want.

My sister went through this a few years ago. They even did a liver biopsy to see if they could find out a cause and found nothing. Then her numbers fell back into normal. She was on Lexapro at the time.

I really hate the whole annual blood work thing. I'm nervous for days afterward that I'm going to get a call telling me some bad news.

[reprise85]

we're not close or anything... but our moms are. she's inconsolable.

terrible.

[reprise85]

Originally Posted by Starla

My sister went through this a few years ago. They even did a liver biopsy to see if they could find out a cause and found nothing. Then her numbers fell back into normal. She was on Lexapro at the time.

I really hate the whole annual blood work thing. I'm nervous for days afterward that I'm going to get a call telling me some bad news.

better to know... imo. if something's wrong, it's already wrong. sometimes it feels like the means of finding out is somehow the culprit of why it's true. but of course, it's not.

this has been going on for about two years. when i was getting my blood done when i was being hospitalized all the time it was always normal. the only drug i'm on now that i wasn't when i was last hospitalized is wellbutrin. but im on a lot more seroquel than before as well. also could have something to do with my hypothyroidism, but my thyroid is normal right now sooo i dunno

one time, i took a shit-ton of vicodin and got really sick from the tylenol. I had taken mega-doses before, but this one made me puke for a day. Then, I checked myself into the psych ward. the took blood and my kidneys weren't working right. they took it again and it was worse, and they made me go to the regular hospital. got diagnosed with acute renal failure, but my third test started showing improvement and they let me go back to the psych ward. they thought it had absolutely nothing to do with the vicodin. but later i did some research and renal failure does sometimes happen with tylenol overdose, and it's usually a good sign that the person is dying and/or needs a transplant. but my liver showed it was fine, only my kidneys were fucked. i could also feel that something was wrong and had to pee constantly. the doctor was kinda a jack-ass, and obviously things worked out, but i dont think they took it seriously and i could have really been fucked. they should have at least had some kind of intervention, i don't think they even checked my acetaminophen levels. though, if it was going to kill me, it already would have been in motion and too late. he just kept asking me if i had binged on booze.

TL;DR I think I probably have liver damage from acute tyleonol ODs when I took a shit ton of painkillers all the time.

[Bread Regal]

that is terrifying. my parents and all four of my grandparents have all had some form of cancer. so i dread that sort of prognosis. not sure what i'd do after receiving that kind of news.

[Future Boy]

probably make a thread

[Starla]

Originally Posted by reprise85

better to know... imo. if something's wrong, it's already wrong. sometimes it feels like the means of finding out is somehow the culprit of why it's true. but of course, it's not.

this has been going on for about two years. when i was getting my blood done when i was being hospitalized all the time it was always normal. the only drug i'm on now that i wasn't when i was last hospitalized is wellbutrin. but im on a lot more seroquel than before as well. also could have something to do with my hypothyroidism, but my thyroid is normal right now sooo i dunno

one time, i took a shit-ton of vicodin and got really sick from the tylenol. I had taken mega-doses before, but this one made me puke for a day. Then, I checked myself into the psych ward. the took blood and my kidneys weren't working right. they took it again and it was worse, and they made me go to the regular hospital. got diagnosed with acute renal failure, but my third test started showing improvement and they let me go back to the psych ward. they thought it had absolutely nothing to do with the vicodin. but later i did some research and renal failure does sometimes happen with tylenol overdose, and it's usually a good sign that the person is dying and/or needs a transplant. but my liver showed it was fine, only my kidneys were fucked. i could also feel that something was wrong and had to pee constantly. the doctor was kinda a jack-ass, and obviously things worked out, but i dont think they took it seriously and i could have really been fucked. they should have at least had some kind of intervention, i don't think they even checked my acetaminophen levels. though, if it was going to kill me, it already would have been in motion and too late. he just kept asking me if i had binged on booze.

TL;DR I think I probably have liver damage from acute tyleonol ODs when I took a shit ton of painkillers all the time.

My sister's LFT's were always abnormal for a long period of time. She insisted on the tests, and they did act as if they were not worried about it when they couldn't find a problem. She pushed for the biopsy because she couldn't live in peace not knowing. They found nothing... and after 3 different doctors, they concluded that it could be the lexapro. If I remember right, what precipitated the concern was that her skin itched all over almost all the time w/ no rash.

I remember I had wisdom tooth pain and took 8 tylenol every four hours. The look on the dentists face when I told him that.... I was much younger and didn't know how dangerous it is to take so many.

[reprise85]

haha I bet the dentist freaked out. there should really be big warnings on tylenol.

I have to make an appt for the re-take and I'm going to pick up my initial test reports today. maybe it's only a little high or something. cue obsessive googling in 3... 2...

[reprise85]

it is only a little high. i checked my last result from mid-2012 - it was 162. now it's 121. normal is 33-115. maybe it's a medication i'm still on but take less of. that would make sense. i have to take the blood test again and then if it's high i'm sure they'll want to either do more tests or at least talk to me about what it means etc

[reprise85]

oh my triglycerides went from 219 to 153, pretty rad

and my bad cholesterol went down and my good went up

fish oil does work. n=1 is the best sample size.

i guess this is growing up