A special kind of tummy ache

So I talked a LOT about the colonoscopy I had last week which was heavy on my mind because my Dad died from colon cancer. But I didn't talk about the endoscopy I also had and that was where a "problem" was found. Now I considered using my own endoscopic images for this post but decided against it because it sounds like a weird thing to do (and may be somewhat unethical). So in what was a COMPLETE surprise to me, polyps were found in my stomach, they were removed, and grossly didn't look like anything more that just benign pieces of tissues ( of course, I'm waiting on histological conformation). I was also diagnosed with acid reflux which is related to how the polyps are believed to have developed on the first place. The thing is, I've never felt serious symptoms of acid reflux unless I ate spicy food and over time, I grew smart enough to take a GasX before eating food like that. But I do have a family history there too, both my mother and grandmother took meds for it. And now so do I.

Funny thing is that all these procedures I'm having are only reinforcing my decision to pursuing a patient oriented field of medicine and over and over again, I'm feeling like Oncology would be a great fit. So I'm going to set up for the summer, some shadowing experiences with one of my mentors, a Black female MD/PhD who specializes in Urological Oncology, which reminds me. Its a lot of fun to think about areas I may want to pursue in Oncology. And true to my previous interests in Pathology, similar areas of specialization come to mind like Gynecological Oncology (especially breast), and Urological Oncology because I really enjoyed my kidney cancer research projects!