Operation Update: The Results of My Cyst

Just a quick update post this evening as so many of you have been kindly asking after me and how I’ve been following my operation to remove a cyst last month.

You’re all so lovely to care, I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated all the well wishes and love sent my way! I had my follow up appointment with the specialist this morning and I thought I’d share what the results were. It’s been three and a half weeks since the operation to remove a cyst (the size of a large grapefruit, eep) from my abdomen and in a nutshell I’m absolutely fine now. The cyst has been examined and I went in to find out what its beef with me was.

(To recap VERY briefly: the cyst was in my abdomen and pressing on the nerves, causing pain and numbness in my right leg for the past two years. I had keyhole surgery last month where it was drained… I have the tiniest wounds – if you or someone you know is having keyhole surgery do NOT worry about scars being left behind. There is practically nothing to see, though I would have liked SOMETHING of a battle scar to show for it…)!

As far as my recovery went, I was very groggy the first week, which was to be expected; the second week I felt somewhat better but then had a really bad couple of days meaning I cancelled both a day to London for a blogging summit (boo) and a blogging assignment in TOKYO of all places (even bigger boo), but for the last week I’ve felt completely normal.

 

The results

The good news is that cyst was not, is not, and will never be, cancerous. Phew. The not-so-good news (or rather, the cautious news) is that it was a benign tumour (tumour simply meaning a swelling in the body caused by an abnormal growth of tissue, so don’t be frightened by that word!) that filled with fluid and was pressing on just about everything in my abdomen – there’s a 50/50 chance that it may fill back up with fluid again. It may have filled back up again already, it may fill back up again in six months, it may never fill back up again. There’s just no way to know what it’ll do.

So I’ll have another MRI scan in a few weeks to see what it’s doing now, and if it looks fine and I don’t have any more leg pain I’ll have another one six months after that. However, what might happen is that the tumour needs further investigation, especially if it’s a persistent bugger, and in which case I’ll need to go up to London to see an even more specialist specialist as we don’t have someone of that expertise down in the South West.

What did happen straight after the op was that I got an awful lot of the feeling back in my leg and bum (I HATED having a numb bum cheek and groin, I’m SO glad that got sorted), but the numbness has stayed just above the back of my knee. There’s every chance that could be permanent due to damaged nerves, however the leg pain has gone and I can sleep and sit in chairs comfortably for the first time in two years. The relief of that alone makes a numb patch at the back of my leg more than bearable.

Now we know I have it we can keep an eye on it, so if I get any leg pain at any time or the numbness spreads again then I just need to get back in touch with my specialist and he’ll see me straight away. But I can now start exercising properly and think about when I’ll start running again… I asked him when I could run again and he said “You can do what you like” – hurrah!

The tumour I have (it’s called a schwannoma* if you’re interested in that sort of thing) is apparently very, very unusual. My dad always said I was one in a million, but I think he meant it in a different way (probably in a “is she ever going to get any quieter” kind of way 😉 )

*not to be confused with schawarma, one of the greatest scenes in cinema ever, lol…

WHAT STORY DO YOU HAVE THIS WEEK THAT YOU WANT TO SHARE? TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS…

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