As you may have read, December and January were challenging months for us. Between my dad's death, and winding up his affairs, "losing" my job, and waiting for news on tests and biopsies, it was hard to get into the spirit of the holidays, although we did our best to enjoy the time we were able to spend with Henry, Maggie, Jane, my sister, and her family.
We got our AZ condo put back together and reorganized after the bad flood that wiped us out last July, and then packed up our things to return to WI. This time we drove through Denver for dinner with H and Mags, and then on to Chicago, where we had scheduled a stop at the Prenuvo clinic for a full body MRI.
You may have heard of Prenuvo in the news. It's one of a handful of companies that's taking advanced MRI into a new market: Luxury Wellness. The idea behind the Prenuvo is: why wait until something happens to your health, when you can catch problems before they become a problem. You plunk down $2,500 and they screen you from head to toe using optimized hardware, software, and AI. In just one hour they'll be able to tell you if there's anything wrong with you. The scans can supposedly identify hundreds of potential conditions including all kinds of cancers, solid tumors, potential aneurysms, skeletal degradations, and all kinds of other chronic and acute conditions. There's been some media backlash against these kinds of companies. Because insurance doesn't cover the scan in most situations, they're being decried as healthcare for the rich and famous – lots of celebrities have been comped scans in exchange for them touting the services to their legions of followers. Others have said that the scans return with both false positives and false negatives, meaning they're not foolproof and therefore not a replacement for regular doctor visits and physicals. And yet others have said that doing something like this can send you down a rabbit hole: if something shows up on your scan, it may be benign or it could be something bad, but the scan can't tell you, so you might end up undergoing additional tests or biopsies, which may or may not lead to something. Where does it end? Do we cause ourselves more worry and expense and tie up medical resources that could be used for persons truly in need?
We decided to do a Prenuvo scan because in the past 12 months I've received 4 different cancer diagnoses. It seems like every time a doctor prodded or poked me, they would find another form of cancer. In 2023 alone I was diagnosed with two basal cell carcinomas (for the 7th and 8th times), one squamous cell carcinoma, prostate cancer, and now most recently, leukemia. This begged the question: if every time we look for cancer, we find it, where are we not looking? What if I also have other cancers in my body? It seemed like the best way to put our mind at rest was to look at everything all at once. Prenuvo was our answer. One concern we had was that there could be some causative correlation between the separate diagnoses that might foreshadow other future diagnoses. Turns out the answer is no. Phew. Bullet dodged.
The good news is that we've received the report, and there's nothing else lurking in my body that we hadn't already identified. It was also nice to receive independent confirmation that there are issues in my prostate and bone marrow. Although the report did not identify what the problems were, they did urge me to visit specialists to identify and treat, if necessary. Interestingly, they did inform me that I have some mild skeletal degradation in my back, and shoulders. I guess that means I'm getting old.
Had we not received the four cancer diagnoses over the past year, we probably would not have sprung for the additional cost of the Prenuvo scan. But we have a little bit of peace of mind knowing there's nothing else that's obviously happening in my body. At this time. 🙄
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