Diagnostic test update

After 2 days of diagnostic testing involving IV contrast and a blood draw, my poor left arm is shot to hell. I suppose the port will be a good thing for just this reason.

I had the MUGA scan on Wednesday and it shows my heart function to be normal. Why am I not surprised!

The bone scan does not show that any cancer has moved into my skeletal system. However, it does show degenerative joint disease in my ankles, low back (L-5) and clavicle-sternum joints. I am not at all surprised by my ankles and low back, but I don't get the clavicle thing.

The CT scan is fairly unremarkable. There are a 3 spots on my lungs, 2 on the right and 1 on the left, but they are too small to do anything about. There is no way of telling whether or not they mean anything. I'm not worried about it.. this is what happens when you get scanned from head to toe.. any little thing shows up. Anyway, we will follow it over the years, but it won't impact the plan for chemotherapy.

I also had a bood draw this morning that I have not received the results from yet. I am back at SCCA this afternoon because I still have some redness on my breast and it doesn't appear that the infection has quite cleared up yet, so it's another 7 days of Cipro.

I've picked up all of my prescriptions for when chemotherapy starts, including the chemotherapy pill, zantac, ativan, compazine and bactrim. Because I'm a little allergic to bactrim, I have to go through a desensitization and work up to the actual pills. Also, the G-CSF injections have arrived. So, I'm all set... at least for the moment.

Tonight my friend is coming over for movie night.. that will be fun

Mini-melt down

Well this was a very hard day. I realize I'm entitled to a break-down every once in a while but that doesn't mean I like it.

My thoughts lately have been that I really don't want to do this. Not that I'm not going to do it, or that I don't understand why I have to do it, or that I don't see the validity in doing it. But, I really, really don't want to.

Today when I was getting the MUGA scan done I was hit with the realization that this is now the time that I am doing this. The march towards chemo and the next 6 months has started and there's not a lot I can do about it. I managed to hold things together until the study was done, but afterwards when I was meeting with Kay, my oncology nurse and she was explaining about all the side-effects and all the drugs and this and that, I just got completely overwhelmed and I couldn't help from crying. I made it through the session though but asked if I could just stay in the room for awhile. I somehow even managed to convince her that I can give myself a shot.

I realized that I really couldn't go to work this afternoon so I called my mom and asked her to come pick me up. I spent the afternoon at her house and had dinner and now I'm home still feeling a little fragile, but much better.

One of the prescriptions I was given today was Ativan and I've started taking it. Hopefully that will be enough to calm the anxiety and get through the next week.

Tomorrow I get the Bone Scan and CT Scan done.