Rough week

Just when I thought I'd gotten past all the nausea and vomiting and had weaned myself off most of my meds, all those nasty symptoms returned in full force. Plus I had crying spells for no reason leading me to return to my anti-depressants and anti-nausea meds - pretty much I'm back on all my meds and feeling just a bit better. No vomiting today. But it's slow going and I'm impatient to feel better.

The brain MRI is scheduled for next week on the 19th. When I worked as nurse, we sometimes had patients who would come in with advanced problems that could have had simple solutions if only they had come in earlier. I was always astonished when they were asked why they didn't come in sooner and the answer was, "I didn't want to know". Now I'm in a position to understand that reply somewhat. Part of me doesn't want to know if the brain tumors are growing because then I will be facing very bad news. On the other hand...what else can you do? These things have to be faced. But it's pretty scary.

On the bright side: we got a puppy about a month ago. I love dogs and lost my little dog to coyotes in the spring. Ever since, we've been looking for another dog. I was sort of half-hearted in my search but my sister, LuAnne made it her mission. We finally found (accidently) some neighbors who were selling cairn terrier puppies. I've not been familar with this breed but read up on them and they sounded like great dogs. My sister Carolyn (who lives next door) and I both got puppies after falling in love with the cute little things. Everyone says it has perked me up to have a puppy again. Now we just have to get through the potty-training phase...yuck!

News from the doctor

I saw my oncologist yesterday just before chemo treatment. He informed me that my tumor marker had dropped about 10 points and although it's still far from normal, going down is a good direction - showing that the new chemo regimen is working. Other lab work showed that my liver enzymes went from high to normal as well. Another good sign.

On the negative side, I've been getting spot headaches, meaning not like a regular headache where your head hurts all over but rather just one or two particular areas will get a sharp, throbbing pain that fortunately doesn't last long. Because of this, the doctor wants to get another MRI of my brain in the next week or so. This part concerns me the most since it's the tumors in my brain that most likely could kill me.

I also have a tumor under my reconstructed breast which has been there ever since the cancer spread all over. It's kind of been my barometer for how the cancer is growing. When it gets large, usually the internal cancer is growing. When it starts to shrink, the internal cancer is most likely shrinking as well. Right now, the breast tumor is fairly large. When it gets large, the skin tightens to the point of splitting open. Usually some antibiotic ointment takes care of it and it eventually closes over but more recently, it is not closing up like it usually does. Whether that is due to the fact that the tumor isn't shrinking very much or the openings are not responding to the antibiotic ointment - I don't know. The good news is that in all of this, I don't have pain - or not enough to complain about. Now and then, I'll have a pinch or ache but compared to others who have to be on narcotics, I feel very blessed.