It's all good ... kinda

So I had my 6 month check up with Dr. Jalkut.  But before the actual appointment I had bloodwork and an abdominal and pelvic CT.  Dr. Jalkut said (and I quote!) "You're perfect!"  My bloodwork showed that Liza (the name I have given to my remaining kidney - as you all know I name everything) is functioning very well all on her own now that Elvira is gone.  The CT showed NEOD - otherwise known as No Evidence Of Disease.  :)

I am a very fortunate girl to have caught the tumor when we did (just .10 cm short of stage 2 renal cell carcinoma).  To know that the cancer is gone and that I have essentially beaten this thing is a wonderful feeling.

The CT itself is not hard.  The prep before hand is NASTY.  You have to drink this stuff called Readi-Cat 2.  It's Barium Sulfate suspension liquid.  You get to choose between two lovely flavors - berry or mocha.  In other words crap and coffee flavored crap.  It used to be that you only had to drink one big jug of the stuff.  But recently they have changed that and now you have to drink two big jugs of the stuff.  You start 1.5 hours before the scheduled scan and you drink 1 jug in 10 minutes.  Then 30 minutes later you drink the 2nd jug in 10 minutes.  This is a feat in and of itself - to get the whole jug down in 10 minutes.  Then at the CT they do an IV with contrast in it while you are being scanned. 

While the Readi-Cat was nasty - I lived through it. But in the afternoon I started feeling nasty.  It quickly turned into excruciating abdominal pain.  The pain was severe and lasted about 4 hours.  Once I got through the pain I practically passed out into a coma for the next 11 hours.  I have talked with my doctor and I presented as though I was having an overdose reaction to the Readi-Cat.  Wondering if because of the gastric bypass (smaller pouchy tummy and not as much intestines for it to go through) if two bottles of the crap was too much.  I'm hoping to get some more definitive answer to that before I have to do the CT Scan again in 6 months because that was really not fun at all.