It’s been a weird month

Day 828.

Work has been quite busy and a bit stressful, to be honest. And I have been dealing with some personal things. I am sure that will manifest itself in my health somehow. On the health front I have had a couple of appointments.

Talking to my GP about my liver results

I made an appointment to talk to my GP about the abdominal ultrasound scan results. Specifically the results mention three hyperechoic regions. That is up two from last year, and the size mentioned seem quite significant to me: 22x16x10mm, 15x13x5mm and 40x25x19mm.

My GP had sent me a text after she received the scan results to say "you do have fatty changes in the liver which can be helped by a lowfat diet. please see me if you require more info".

My regular liver blood test have also had some abnormalities since the end of last year. As an example, this month my ALT was 46 U/L - which is slightly high - and my Protein was 63 g/L - which is slightly low. The highest my ALT has been so far was 101 U/L.

I went to my GP appointment and I told her that I had already been losing weight. I asked her if I needed to be more aggressive with that, and she said no - just keep going. And that is pretty much all she said. She didn't mention that I needed to see a specialist or anything.

I guess my concern is: this change has happened regardless of my weightloss so far. And I am on a lot of medications that can affect my liver. And sarcoidosis can also affect the liver. Should my GP be assuming that this is just based on my weight?

What about all the sarcoidosis specialist referrals?

I asked my GP about the three referrals that the sarcoidosis specialist had made. She agreed to refer me to the hospital's ophthalmologist, but only after again asking me to see an optometrist. She did not want to follow up on the thirst issue with an MRI as recommended, or refer me to an ENT specialist.

I am pretty much at my wits end with my GP. I think I need to find another one.

An MRI for my spine

Last year I had severe lower back pain from early March for about 11 months. I saw an orthopaedic surgeon in June last year (I think) who referred me for an MRI of my spine.

At the time the MRI could not be done, due to my ICD. The radiology organisation has to have an ICD tech come in to temporarily switch off the ICD for the duration of the MRI. And the ICD tech was on maternity leave at the time.

Fast forward to this month, and I received a call out of the blue. My spine MRI could be scheduled. So in I went to the private hospital in Wellington where this particular radiology branch was. It was quite fancy!

It was an interesting experience with the ICD tech turning my device to MRI mode before the scan, and then switching it back after the scan. It created this weird sense of urgency for the staff doing the scan too.

I guess I will see if there is anything going on with my spine.