** This post will be a little long because it tells most of the story that led me to my detour in life."
It all started a few months ago. It was late May when I first noticed a lump on my left thigh. It was completely painless and no other signs of something wrong. After a few months, my wife and I noticed the lump was growing. Also, depending on what movements I tried with my leg I could feel one of the nerves pulling and shooting some pain down the leg. Well, it was time to see a doctor.
I went to see Dr. C and he sent me to get an MRI and referred me to an Orthopedic Surgeon. A week later I visited DR. O with the MRI done. He asked me a bunch of questions and said it wasn't a cyst and that he wasn't going to touch it. It was then that I began to realize something was wrong. He came back to the office with a doctor's name and phone number for me. He was referring me to an Orthopedic Surgeon Oncologist... I left the office feeling confused and somewhat scared. If ever you've been referred to an oncologist you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you have not, trust me, it is not good news.
A week later, I was at Sinai Hospital to see Dr. Aboulafia. We had a good chat and he confirmed the presence of a tumor. He diagnosed me with a Nerve Sheath Tumor and gave me only a 2% chance of malignancy. We then scheduled an open biopsy and on the first of November I had the surgery.
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| Waking up after procedure |
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When I woke up at about 10:30am after the two-hour procedure, I remember seeing Dr. Aboulafia speaking with my wife. I called him up and asked: Is it benign or malignant? "I don't know yet," he said... Again, I knew something was wrong... I went home the same day and had to wait six days for the results. I'm posting a picture of my leg right after the biopsy. My next post will be about the biopsy result.
