Appointment Follow-up

I met with my Oncologist today.  For the most part it was a pretty positive meeting.  My lab work, or rather the first data to come from it, showed everything in the normal range.  I’m not anemic, neither do I have any raging infections going on.  This is good.  My blood pressure was high, 140 over 90.  I’ve been borderline for years now and that reading is just about normal for me.  I could get it down if I lost some weight.  Something to work on over the summer months.

I talked to the doctor about the lump under one of my arms.  He poked about but didn’t really detect anything.  I explained that the lump was gone now.  He asked if raising my arms over my head was uncomfortable.  It is.  Not in any painful way, just this dogging pressure.

We also talked about the difficulty I’m having getting rest.  I explained that I’ve changed things around at work and will be in a somewhat less demanding work area for the near term future.  We also talked about stress most of which centers on Marvina and her health challenges.

We talked about diet changes or at least scheduling meals differently.  Marvina and I work a swing shift.  We get home and usually have dinner around 11pm.  One to two hours later we’re in bed.  I didn’t think that was a good idea and my Oncologist agreed explaining that while eating might at first make us feel drowsy, once our digestive tracts kicked in we’d wake up.  So Marvina and I will have to work on this one two.

I really hate giving up the dinner thing.  It’s really the only meal we have together during the day.  If we were better we would get up earlier and have breakfast together.  But things don’t work out well that way.

He also added on another test to my lab.  He’s going to check my thyroid function.  As he explained it he likes to begin testing thyroid in his patients on an annual basis when they get to be my age.  Yeah!  Something new to collect with old age.

I’ll also have to wait on my creatinine levels to come back to give us an idea how my kidneys are functioning.  No (visible) blood in the urine which is a good thing.  Still, I need to keep an eye on it.  I also need to schedule an appointment with my Urologist to have him give my stoma a once over.  A distinct hardness has developed around the lower half of my stoma that worries me a bit.  I think it’s also messing with how well my Urostomy bags are adhering.

And in consideration of all the above he decided to schedule me for a CT later this month.  So I’ll be revisiting him towards the end of month to go over the scan.  Hopefully nothing significant will show up and all will be well.

In the meantime I’ll do as he suggested and take a couple of Xanax at bedtime to help me sleep.  If I continue to have problems we’ll have to look at something different.

So there it is, a lot of information but no conclusions.  Cancer sucks.