Some good news

I had to have a follow-up mammography for my right breast today as a 6 month follow-up for my breast biopsy. It was fine. I really wasn't worried about having cancer. Instead I was very worried that they would find something- again- that would require biopsy to determine is benign. And I started wondering how many biopsies I will have in my lifetime- and remembering the patient I had who had a mastectomy due to repeated (benign) biopsies. I guess at some point you would either need to stop having mammograms or have a mastectomy if it got that bad.

Of course I could get breast cancer- but dying of heart disease is much more likely with my risk factors and family history. Unfortunately there is no law saying that you can't have both breast cancer and heart disease. Or breast cancer, heart disease, and bipolar disorder... There is a part of my mind that thinks having bipolar ought to give me a pass on having a serious medical condition, at least until I am "older." Like god/the universe wouldn't be that cruel to strike me twice. I know that this is a very irrational feeling. All the studies, in fact, show that moods disorders increase your rate of just about everything it seems- and if the mood disorder doesn't, then the meds do.

At work I was playing "Dr. House." I was diagnosing (in my head) an undiagnosed patient with neurological symptoms and it isn't good. I hope I am wrong. I'm often right about these things- and with the last patient I was right about it was ALS. If I had gone into medicine- which I considered very, very briefly for about 1 semester in college (before organic chemistry and before the psych hospital), I think I would have become a neurologist. Even though being a neurologist is pretty depressing- because the brain has limited ability for regeneration, plus many of the illnesses are progressive- there is a limit to what you can do to help your patients. But still, I thought about neurology.

Today I might be more interested in hand surgery. But I have lousy fine motor coordination, I'm lucky I can take out sutures. And I have poor spatial skills. So really, hand surgery would be a bad fit. I'll stick with neurology for my imaginary medical career.