Bad News from the Doctor

Hey guys! It's Kristi again. Mom wanted me to come on here and post a message about the news that I got from the doctor myself. I think she was afraid she'd get it all wrong. My six month check up with the oncologist was last Thursday. I didn't get such great news. I guess it could have been a lot worse, but it was still rough to handle. The first batch of bad news came as soon as I checked myself in. This oncologist will stop accepting my insurance on August 1st. This means that I either pay "out of network" premiums or I switch doctors for the third time in a year. I would gladly pay to continue to see this doctor if she could guarantee that I would not have to have surgery, but since I am pretty sure that I am eventually going to have to have surgery, I am more than likely going to have to switch. There is only one other gynecological oncologist (what a mouthful) in this immediate area. If that doctor doesn't accept my insurance, then I will probably have to start seeing someone in Kansas City or St. Louis. It kind of feels like I am going to be starting over at square one, although I am trying to look at it from the perceptive that maybe this new doctor will have different options than the one I am currently seeing. The second batch of bad news is that I still have a year to a year and half of the cervical biopsies before they will take my treatment a step further. The type of abnormal cells that I have have been known to heal themselves in 60 to 70 percent of cases, so the recommendation is to wait 2 to 3 years before pursuing any kind of treatments. This will be the case until the cells either go away completely or get much worse. For most people who read this, this scenario would seem like no big deal. This situation is emotionally draining for me however, so the possibility of doing this for another year and a half is really depressing for me. I am a nervous wreak for the week or two before my appointment and then for two weeks after, until I get my results. The subject never leaves my mind, of course but the month surrounding my appointments are complete and utter h-e-double hockey sticks. My feelings on this is that if the cells have not repaired themselves in last year and a half that I have been dealing with this, then I really don't think they are going to up and decide to go away now. I haven't gotten the results of this last round of biopsies yet, but I'm sure Mom will post something regarding them when we do. The third round of bad news was that I may be dealing with abnormal cells in two different areas of my body. My monthly cycle, which had always been pretty regular, decided in April of 08 to take a hiatus and has not come back yet. According to the oncologist, the absence of my monthly cycle indicates that I have something abnormal occurring with either my hormones or in my uterus. Due to the fact that I didn't stop taking birth control until December of last year, they will not begin doing biopsies on my uterus until this December. She said that my not having the monthly cycle could be attributed to many things including hormonal changes, weight gain or loss, or stress. She wants to wait the full year to see if the cycle will appear again normally. If not, they will begin the biopsy process in my uterus and thus will begin the 2 to 3 year biopsy cycle in that area. Honestly at this point, I am just ready for them to take everything out and let me go on with my life. Unfortunately with my age and the fact that I am currently single, they won't even consider that. I would have to be much worse off before they would fight the insurance company to do that type of surgery.