Friday, September 5, 2008

Wellness #42: Staying Well

O.K., I tried the symptom checker on my hip pain. For the past week when ever I move my leg in various ways, (I haven't figured out exactly what I'm doing yet.) I've been getting this intense shooting pain up my hip. It is inconsistant and started when I slept a couple of nights in my in-laws guest bed, which is why I am going to give it another week before I go into the doctor. I personally think it is a pinched nerve. The Mayo Clinic, however, says it is a hip labral tear. As I read it, it makes sense but the pain does seem to come from the nerves not anything that is torn. Reading the treatment though, they suggest pain killers anyway which I can and have been doing on my own. If it doesn't go away by next Thursday, I will call the doctor for an appointment.

I found the MedlinePlus Go Local website harder to use than I thought it would be. I tried to find resources for thyroid cancer 10 miles from my home and came up with a VERY confusing list. I had to go by county and not distance. This is not an easy thing to do when you live at the corner of three different counties. I also didn't find much in the way of support groups in the area period. I guess it is still to rare of a disease to warrant a support group at a regional basis. (There is a nationwide group called ThyCa, but they do not have local meetings.)

I was able to create a health family tree. It would not be very useful to my descendants since my husband and I are planning to adopt. (Among other medical and genetic problems we both have, my husband's exact words were, "We're not having children of our own. We're stopping this Moran cancer gene in it's tracks!" After 4 types of cancer in 4 different generations, none of which are now fatal, I whole heartedly agree.) I am planning on saving it though for my nieces and nephews. It would be nice for them to have all that family health information in one place.

1 comment:

Roselle said...

Hello:

I saw your post through my Google Alerts as I'm a facilitator for the Seattle thyroid cancer support group. You may want to check out the Person-to-Person Network ThyCa offers. Since there is no support group in your area, this may be of help to you. Find out more information on this service at http://www.thyca.org/tppn.htm. ThyCa is also holding its International Thyroid Cancer Survivors Conference in St. Louis, October 17 - 19, 2008. You can find more information at http://www.thyca.org/conferences.htm.I wish you all the best.

Roselle