Follow ups

 Last week was... interesting.  

I went for the appointment with the lung oncologist on Tuesday, only to be told that he would not see me, and that I didn't need to be there.

Instead, though, they sent in the lung surgical PA (who I was scheduled to see next week), and she explained why.

THAT was better than just being sent home! 

They felt that my breast oncologist jumped the gun, and that I should not be having my follow up CT for another 4 weeks.  

What they're calling pneumonitis takes up to 4 weeks to clear, so a CT any sooner will not likely show any changes.

Hmmmm.

SO, the next day, when I saw my regular (breast) oncologist, she explained that, because I am in treatment, she did not want to delay the follow up scan for that long.

I had been told (by her PA) that my next chemo was on hold, but she insisted that was NOT the case.

Friday afternoon, I went for my CT as planned, and, when I saw the surgical PA last week, said she would call me on Monday with the results.  

I am also scheduled to see my doctor again on Wednesday, and if the scans look okay, we will proceed with my regularly scheduled chemo on Thursday!

In the meantime, I have to take the steroids for 5 more weeks in order to "taper it off." 

For now, I am taking 10 mg less, and none at night, and then 10 mg less, etc, until I am finished with them.

NOT having to take it at bedtime is helping me to sleep a bit better so far.  The steroid sleeplessness last week was BRUTAL.

Other than that, I am still 100% symptom-free.

Yesterday was a VERY rainy day here in OKC.  There was dangerous flooding all over the state.  We are grateful that our part of town doesn't flood.

I made a pan of lasagna yesterday, and did most of my chores.  

I hope to get out today and buy some flowers, and sweet potato vines, to plant.  I am not sure I will try planting anything edible this year.  Annual garden failures get to a person, after 12 years... HAHA! 

We are supposed to be meeting a friend at a Guatemalan restaurant for brunch, and later, I will finish my chores, and hopefully have some spiritual time.

Tomorrow is my 63rd birthday, and we are going to a state park that I have never visited before (and that Dave has not been to in decades).  We will look at the cabins while we are there, too.

I booked us a room at the lodge, and we will pack a cooler.

I need this four day weekend so much right now!!

No antibiotic

 Last week, I posted about the chest CT results and the fact that my doctor had put me on an antibiotic, a stomach protector med, and an oral steroid.

I had been surprised when we picked up THREE prescriptions, instead of ONE, but I just read the instructions on the jars, and figured they had added two more meds??

The fact was that my PA had called me back mere MINUTES after her first call to me a week ago Friday, and said NOT to take the antibiotic.  

I am assuming that is because, when she spoke to me, and I made it clear that I have NO SYMPTOMS, that the doctor changed the approach.

Anyway, I obviously missed that call!  I had JUST clocked out from work, and my phone was still on silent.

I did not look at my phone again that evening, and didn't see that she had left a voice message.

Fortunately, I finally saw the voice message on Saturday, and had only taken one antibiotic pill!

SO... Over the past week, I have gone along with the stomach protector, and the steroid, as directed.

The steroid was keeping me up most of the night, but no other negative impacts, so I messaged my PA on Friday and begged for help.

The nurse replied with a suggestion that I try Sominex, which I just happened to have some.  It's worked very well the past two nights.

Unfortunately, the steroid also causes depletion of potassium, so I have been sleeping between raging bouts of night time leg cramps.

I just can't win.

Yes, I am taking extra potassium supplements (have been since my blood work showed low potassium a while back), and trying to include high potassium foods in my daily intake, but DANG.  

Late in the week last week, the phone started ringing again.   I've not been silencing it, because I knew that I'd be getting calls from the scheduling desk at the cancer center.

I now have an appointment with the lung oncologist on Tuesday, my regular six week visit with my breast oncologist on Wednesday, and the follow up CT scan on Friday.

Then, I took the following Monday off for my birthday, so that will be nice.... but after that, I have an evaluation appointment with the lung surgeon.

As I stated previously, we have seen these "glassy opacity" indications on my CT scans several times over the ten years of my treatment, and nothing has ever been done about them, and nothing has ever come of them.  They have just resolved on their own.

This time, however, my current care team are going full guns, and I am tired.

I was handling the stress okay until they referred to potential surgery.  What?  Why??  So the anxiety is amped up now, which I do not fucking need.

Add to it that my employer recently took away 75% of our paid time off hours, and I am in a GREAT mood about all of this!

OF COURSE I am grateful that they are being thorough. OF COURSE I recognize that I am in good hands.  But.  

I'm tired.  I'm also allowed to express myself on my blog, HAHA! 

OH!  And the heart ultrasound came back normal again, so that was a relief.

Anyway.... in other news, we finally got a good, soaking rain.  It's been gloomy and cool the past couple of days, which has been nice.

In my sleepless hours this past week, I decided to spend this weekend making Greek food.   My attempt at skordalia (potato and garlic paste/dip) was a complete failure, so I may try again today.

Yesterday, I roasted beets to go with the now-non-existent skordalia, and also roasted the potato for it, the garlic for it, and some red peppers.

The red peppers will go into a meal today with Greek meatballs, orzo, feta, and kalamata olives.

I also made a pot of my favorite lemon chicken soup yesterday.  

It's nice when sleeplessness can be productive!

SO far, the new wet food we got for the cats to try is working out!  It's from a brand called Blue Buffalo, is grain free, and they are all managing to eat it (with gusto),  and not throw it up.

Between the new kibble, and now the new wet food, we MAY have finally come upon a solution that makes everyone happy, including the humans.

Pete starts his new daily medication next Friday, after his current steroid shot wears off.

All available appendages crossed! 

Dave got our former neighbor to agree to come over and help install the new television on Monday, so that's all done.

We donated the old one to the shelter for homeless youth.

My new laptop computer is still in the box, though, which is okay.  I've been in "overwhelm" mode anyway.

Dave started talk therapy again this past week.  Looking forward to him maybe finding some motivation to do...well, anything at all.

Got my usual household chores done yesterday, and plan to take it as easy as possible today. In fact, I think I'll start my day with a warm bath, so I can massage my legs.

Have a good week!

Minor setback

 Well, Pete stopped eating almost everything over the week since my last post, so he went to the vet again on Friday.  He was dropping weight WAY too fast.

He got another injection, and the vet is STILL convinced this is NOT cancer, but highly sensitive digestion. 

This injection will last two weeks, and then we will switch to a low-dose steroid cream that we will rub into his ear every day, like we do with Annabel's medication.

The vet agreed with the logic of my attempts to change the food, and he suggested a particular brand.

Yesterday, we went out and got some at a specialty pet store up on the north side of town, and, so far, Pete LOVES it.

It's available to order online for home delivery through Chewy, but we needed to try it first, since we've spent SO MUCH MONEY lately on foods that  didn't work out.

Dave will go get a couple more single servings tomorrow, and if it's still a hit, we will sign up for getting it on our Chewy account.

The only worry is that it's imported from Canada.... and, well..... we know that could mean that it will become unavailable at some point.

UGH.

In other news, my chest CT scan showed an area of concern that my oncologist thinks might be an infection in my right lung.

I am completely symptom free, but since this is one of the main risks of this chemotherapy (Enhertu), and this is the reason WHY I have to go for a chest CT every two months, it needs to be addressed.

SO, I am starting an antibiotic, a stomach protecting drug, and a daily steroid, today.

Again...UGH...especially regarding the effing steroid...  and I will have another CT in two weeks.

I am not worried, because I am symptom free (no cough, no fever, no shortness of breath, no anything other than my usual seasonal allergies). 

We also have seen this before, over the years of my various treatments.  My former doctor never treated it, and it always resolved on its own.

I just can't remember if we saw it after I started this chemo, over two years ago, when I was still with him.

It's just aggravating, since now my bloodwork is coming back normal, but now we have this.

My usual cardiac ultrasound is tomorrow, as well, so please hope and pray with me that it comes back normal again!

In still other news, we fell for the panic buying trend this past week, and ordered the new television we had been discussing maybe getting some day.  

Since we had heard about the 145% tariff on all imports from China, and then had seen a head line that China has stopped all trade with the U.S., we went ahead.  We got an amazing price from Costco.... less than half the price we paid 7 years ago for the tv we are replacing.

Unfortunately, Costco does not include installation, so now we have a giant box in the living room, and are hoping that Dave can find SOMEONE to come help him set up the new tv.  I certainly can't lift something like that.

Then, given the news, we also went ahead and got me a new lap top.  You may recall that I got Dave one for his retirement/birthday gift.  

Since then, my old one has been acting up a bit, as well as showing its age, so we had started to talk about getting a new one for me as well.

The price on the lap top was NOT great, but we still had our entire tax refund sitting in the bank, and were planning on this happening some time anyway, just like with the tv.

So, I guess it's not EXACTLY panic buying, but more.... rushing two purchases we had been considering, instead of waiting to make them.

Fortunately, we both got new phones when we put Dave on my account a while back (mine was free), so that's already done.

We had snow last weekend, and today, it's supposed to be really hot, and windy.  Possibly record-setting heat, and high fire danger. Whee.

We got lots of stuff done yesterday, none of it outside.  MUCH yard work needs to be done in the back, but it probably won't happen today, either.

OH well.

Dave's going to try to attend a town hall meeting today, being hosted by a local activist who is not a politician.  We'll see how his anxiety is.... he may not stay long.

I just had chemo on Thursday, so I am not going.

Off to make us breakfast.  Have a good week!

Snow?

 The weather roller coaster continues, with the possibility of snow today.

We got some good, soaking rain over the past few days, though, and things should return to "normal" next week.

Snow in April in Oklahoma is ... really weird. 

Last week was pretty uneventful.  Dave had his usual appointment with his psychiatrist (he sees him every few months), and has been prescribed to go back to talk therapy.  That appointment has been set up, too.

Then, he had his "welcome to medicare" check up with a new primary care doctor.  

I just worked, ate, and slept, basically.

They assigned me a new task at work, which is EXTREMELY tedious, but will fill the time.  

The director is also working on changing how bank reconciliations are done, so that could be interesting.

I've done them the same way for going on 12 years, so we shall see.

After he started having issues on the original food we switched back to, we decided to go get more of the dry version of the food that Pete really liked.

SO, Pete is back on the special kibble (the one we had gotten before that Annabel couldn't keep down).

Of course, that means that we have to feed him separately, which is a challenge.  Sometimes, we lock the other cats up, sometimes, we lock Pete up.

We do whichever makes the most sense in the situation of the moment!

This process has been so frustrating!  

Pete is still doing okay with the moist food that everyone eats, but the kibble he gets is different, and he loves it, and isn't getting sick nearly as often.

It's pretty clear that the food is the culprit.

We elected not to go to the big march in down town Oklahoma City yesterday, fearing the potential for violence.  

Due to some of the things we'd been reading, we were wary of the potential for crazy people with guns (or big pick up trucks), trying to mow down as many protestors as possible.

It was exhilarating to see hundreds of thousands (some are saying millions) of Americans out on the street, all over the country, marching to demand our rights be protected.

We can't be sure if it will do any good, but we can still be excited to see it happening!

I have an international zoom meeting with my spiritual community later this morning, and then I hope to open up the pantry cabinets and do some re-arranging. 

I got a great deal on pasta through Kroger delivery, and have no place to put three more bags of pasta, HAHA!

But first, Dave wants gimbap for breakfast (eggs, spam, seaweed, and sticky rice, all rolled up like sushi). I haven't made it in years, because...spam... but it's really tasty, and I am looking forward to it, too.  It's nice that now you can buy little vacuum packed packets of spam with only 2 servings inside!

Have a great week!  It's my labs/treatment week, so I will be in the office on Wednesday.