Published: June 12, 2008 12:18 pm      

False positives

When my MRI reports came in from the imaging center in London, I was stunned. Not me. Not cancer! As the weeks turned into months, I decided that if the reports were true, I would do nothing. If indeed, the reports were true, I would follow in my Aunt Christine’s foot steps and let nature take its course.

There was no way that I would want to suffer the ravages of radiation and chemo. I had watched too many folks in my own family go through it and lose the battle.

The written report said there were masses on my lungs, liver and kidneys. I was shocked — for most of my life I had been relatively healthy, except for light asthma and mild arthritis.

I first went for a check-up because I had lifted a piece of heavy furniture and thought I had a hernia. The CT-scan showed something suspicious on my liver, kidney and lungs; the doctor ordered an MRI. Then another... and another.

The reports indicated that the masses looked like they were malignant and had metastasized from another area. The “mass” on my liver was the larger of the masses. There were two of them in my left kidney and several in both lungs, according to the MRI reports.

From November until the following May, I endured a series of tests that caused many sleepless nights. I went from one specialist to another and had talked to Merlene Davis who has shared her bout with lung cancer with her Lexington Herald-Leader readers. She assured me that the surgery was not such a bad thing and she was doing fine.

When I went to the cancer specialist, he showed me a diagram of the surgery he planned to perform on my left kidney.

“I can remove the whole kidney or I can take only one-third of it,” he said as he drew another diagram.

I said, “No, I’d rather get a second opinion.”

The weeks turned into six months, and I made my final plans. But I was feeling fine. I was ready to tell this world “goodbye.”

The lung specialist gave me hope after several tests and finally said, “Your lungs are strong and it looks like you have scars from pneumonia and histoplasmosis.” He said, “If it were cancer, you would be showing symptoms by now.”

I didn’t remember having histo but it sounded good to me — just think of the alternative. I asked, “Exactly what is histoplasmosis?”

He said, “It is a disease that is prevalent in the central and eastern United States and 80 percent of people living here may test positive for the fungus.” After I looked it up on the Internet, I learned that it is a fungus driven on the wind from the dust of bird droppings (pigeons, bats, parrots, parakeets and the like..)

Many people have no symptoms at all unless it becomes disseminated histoplasmosis, affecting other organs. Others have symptoms that mimmick a cold or flu. It usually takes care of itself... but has the possibility of becoming life-threatening.

As it turns out, the mass on my liver is a large hemangioma, which is similar to a large, red birthmark you may have seen on someone’s face. The masses on my kidney are tiny kidney stones of no consequence. And thankfully, the masses on my lungs are scars from histoplasmosis that, according to the doctor, probably happened 40 years ago.

I never thought I’d be thankful for histoplasmosis.



Shirley Caudill of London is a former newspaper editor/publisher and longtime freelance columnist. She is a Nashville native who has lived in Kentucky 40 years. She has six children, 11 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren and is married to a retired Army First Sergeant. She can be reached at shirleycaudill@windstream.net