Cryoablation Not Responding

About five and half weeks ago I had my cryoablation procedure in hopes that it would ultimately kill and shrink the FAVA’s in my upper thigh and buttock. Success rates were high and I was not only hoping, but kind of expecting this procedure to work like the other patients. My interventional radiologist told me that recovery varied from person to person and it generally took between 10 days and 4 weeks for the mass to shrink like it’s supposed to. I’ve been so anxious for the day that I would notice that it had started to shrink however that day never happened. Now five and a half weeks later, the masses are still in the exact same location, exact same size, and are still painful.

The pain still feels different like I said in my previous blog posts and the masses remain to be hard and close to the surface. Sitting on them can be uncomfortable at times because it can feel like I’m sitting on a small rock while my butt and thigh are swollen and bruised. Although having pain still sucks, this pain is more bearable than from before the procedure and the bengay cream surprisingly still takes the edge off of the stabbing, throbbing pains. Unfortunately it doesn’t help much with the nerve pain I get occasionally though. I guess I can’t be too picky!

I’m starting to lose hope with this procedure being successful. I’ve been keeping in touch with the vascular anomalies team at Children’s and they were hoping that I’d notice a difference this week just in case it took a little longer than predicted but with no avail, there’s been no change. I have a phone appointment Monday in hopes that they can give me some options. Either way the anxiety has been eating me alive not knowing if there’s going to be another operation in my near future or not. It’s hard to keep my cool and not to panic. I’ve taken two semesters of college off and the last thing I want to do is take another one off.

But thankfully not everything is going horribly. My hip rotation is back to normal and I have full weight bearing on my leg. I started yoga again which is helping with the pain from the muscles being so tight along with improving my flexibility. Releasing as much tension as possible in my hips along with strengthening my legs, core and hip flexor can help my pain. Other than that, I’ve been trying to keep my anxiety and depression under control until I have options and answers.