My Labs are Fantastic! So why am I so Tired?

Hi,

I went by Dr. Zell's at UCI Med Center today and got my latest lab results. They are so incredibly good! My Chromogranin A is 8.8 ng/mL. That is totally normal. In fact, the Doctor said it was suppressed. We have been happy because I've been having CgA numbers lately between 20 and 50 ng/mL. This is unbelievable. Praise God!

We have been following the amount of gastrin in my blood because the tumors seem to be gastrinomas. All my other values have been 138, 200 (non-fasting), or 600 (non-fasting). Normal fasting gastrin is 100 pg/mL or below. My fasting gastrin is down to 30 pg/mL. In January we checked the serotonin level in my blood, because too much serotonin in the blood can attack the heart valves. Normal serotonin is 26-165 ng/mL. Mine was below 10 ng/mL; too low for the reportable range. So I guess my heart is safe from attack by serotonin.

Today the doctor and I seemed to be on the same wavelength. I was telling him about the symptoms I've been having: diarrhea the day before my treatment; a feeling of fullness in the upper right quadrant of my abdomen; and a dull pain in the same quadrant. He said he had been wanting to get some images, since we have not done any nuclear medicine scans since August 2009, and he suggested doing a MRI. Unlike the nuclear medicine scans, an MRI does not require me to go off my medicine and it exposes me to less radiation than a CT scan. He had obviously been thinking about doing the MRI before I got there. He said we can use it as a baseline scan if nothing shows up regarding the symptoms I'm having. That sounds fine to me!

My next appointment is in three weeks. Dr. Zell said it takes about one week to get the approval from insurance, one week to schedule the MRI and one week to get the results. So I have my next doctor appointment and my LAR on March 16. I can race over to the Medical Center as soon as 5th period ends and get there on time.

So why am I so tired? I don't know. All I can think of is stress from my job. We have our district assessment on March 5 and there's lots of pressure to help the students learn to read and write better for the CST (state testing) at the end of April. I was surprised how much more relaxed I was after the district assessment was over last fall. I was much less stressed. I bet my blood pressure went down that week.

Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance ; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our heartsby the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.