Unremarkable: "not particularly interesting or surprising"

            I have an unremarkable liver.  And I’ve been spending too much time with dead relatives lately.

            At my quarterly check-up in June, my port decided it did not want to release my blood.  The nurse tried everything, including an extra saline flush or two.  She had me sit up in the reclining chair, lay back, hold my right arm over my head, turn my head to the left, take a deep breath.  I believe we tried everything except standing on my head.  At this point, an unyielding port is not serious, just a hassle.  Finally, she decided on a last resort:  having the blood for my lab work drawn from a vein in my left arm.  Maybe next time my port will work.

            For this appointment, I saw my oncology nurse, who gave me a folder filled with information concerning all of my cancer treatments as well as general information for cancer survivors.  She also noted that a couple of my liver enzymes were still elevated, so I got scheduled for an abdominal ultrasound.  She suggested some simple stretches for my right arm, which has lost a little of its range of motion, urged me to exercise more and lose fifteen pounds (though fifty would take me back to my twenties).  She also predicted that the elevated enzymes were likely due to a fatty liver.

            Naturally, I went home and googled fatty liver disease.  What I found was not pleasant.  I also googled metastatic breast cancer, which was even less pleasant.  My worst-case scenario thinking crops up in times like these. 

            The following week I had my ultrasound, and the radiologist report showed up just a day or two later in my See Your Chart file.  I read through the description of the findings, which were basically incomprehensible to me except for the final notation: “unremarkable liver.”  I understood that.  Well, actually there were two other things I understood: “normal gall bladder” and that some little part they wanted to see was obstructed from view by intestinal gas.  Somehow I am not surprised.

            I am very proud of my unremarkable liver and quite determined that I will not let it get fat.  I would rather not mention my rounded waistline where most of my excess weight gathers. 

            But you will have to wait till later to hear about my dead relatives.