I'm so happy to be able to say that I just got a call from the MRI department of VGH and they can have me in tonight at 1:50am for a last minute MRI. The last call I got from them, they said that they are backed up with requisitions for a year, and it may be over a year's wait before I get in. But I joined their cancellation list, and since someone cancelled for tonight, I got the call :) I'm so relieved. The great thing about this is that I will now have a totally clear confirmation of weather I have a fistula, and how complex it may be if anything more than a single channel — or if this recurrent abscess on the buttocks has merely been caused by a cyst. I know I have a cyst, but doctors really wanted to make sure it wasn't a fistula. I was horrified when I found out that they might have to do exploratory surgery just to find out if there's a fistula there or not, if the MRI won't be available within good time. So that's out of the question now, thankfully.
I had gotten very worried about the fistula possibility at one point, and one surgeon who I didn't like at the hospital warned me that I might have Chron's Disease, like "If it's a fistula, that's Chron's Disease". Now, that seems like it was unecessary to terrify me like that, because just having a fistula by no means "is Chron's Disease". A simple fistula is one channel through the buttocks, which can simply be resolved through surgery. Chron's Disease is a disease that continually causes many complex fistula channels, so many that it cannot be operated on without the person becoming incontinent for life as a result of surgeries. When I read that I almost had a heart attack. I mentioned at one point that I was having an intuition that it might be a horrible fate like that, but I want to mention that I've been meaning to post about how I think that intuition was wrong. I think it was just getting overwhelmed by fear at that point, and confusion. Because I realize that my symptoms don't really indicate a fistula.
My symptoms which alerted doctors to the possibility of a fistula were only the fact that I've been having increasing digestive issues over the past while, during the period in which the abscess had been recurring — but as my doctor mentioned, this could of course have very likely been caused by food sensitivities. I had been eating a lot of splenda, a food that was never in my diet before, and much more processed wheat, and far too much sodium for months due to an accident. That may have been the cause, or other things like that if I've missed something, even though I'm tested and I don't have gluten intolerance aka celiac's disease. Anyway, that's only one symptom and aside from the abscess (which could very well be caused by the cyst at its centre) I don't have other symptoms of a fistula. For example I don't have incontinence starting, like defacation found on my underwear when I didn't need to defacate at all, and stuff like that.
Anyway, it's going to feel amazing to have the MRI to prove my theory that there's no fistula. The results will be sent to my family doctor who ordered the MRI by October 1st, at which point I will speak to sae about it. I'm going to make an appointment with sae for around that time, and I'm also going to reschedule my appointment on the 22nd with the colorectal surgeon who is addressing this surgery issue for after I've gotten that information. I'm sure that's sensible because I think the colorectal surgeon having that MRI will make things much more easy to plan.
I'm not going to get a lot of sleep tonight, because I have the MRI late tonight, followed by my family doctor appointment tomorrow pretty early. But it will be worth it to get tons of information and help about. my condition and find out about my future.
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