What's Up With the Doc 15? - or More Fun With Cancer

6/2/08

FUN WITH CANCER just keeps rolling right along. I had another dreadful
O'Hare experience Friday evening that involved gate changes, delays,
lies, lies and more lies about a fictional Cinnabon that resulted in
miles of walking. Bastards! By the time I was half way through that
process I had a moderately severe sore throat but made it home and into
my bed unscathed. I worked Saturday and that was OK. Then the hammer
fell. I woke up Sunday with right sided chest pain whenever I took a
deep breath and a dry cough. I took my beloved Ibuprofen on my way to
work - which made my shoulder feel better but didn't do much for the
chest pain. No fever but my pulse was 120. So I promised myself that if
it didn't get better by noon I'd go to the ER. Which I did. By the time
I got to the ER my pulse was down to 95 and I was cursing myself for not
waiting a little longer. They did counts (fine), a chest x-ray looking
for pneumonia (fine) and a CT angiogram looking for a PE (fine). Because
I didn't have and hadn't had any fever they didn't draw blood cultures
and let me go home - by which time my pulse was 82 and I had almost no
chest pain.

So then, brilliant a person as I am, I went home and launched into the
A/C zone control system that has been making our first floor a meat
freezer and our second floor a sauna. That was an hour and a half of
screw drivers, flashlights, breakers, up and down 2 flights of stairs to
push thermostat buttons, etc. Then dinner. Then Philip's birthday cake,
the decorating of which was an unmitigated disaster with purple
buttercream frosting slowly slipping down the side of the cake. This I
finished at about 9:45 and was miserable - exhausted, chest pain and
short of breath. I cleaned up, went upstairs, changed into PJs and
checked my temperature. Voila! 101.1. So I had to call the on call
doctor. We hashed around alternatives and decided to start the
antibiotic my oncologist has me keep on hand for just such circumstances
and now I'm at work, no fever, feeling better than last night but now I
have a headache, and waiting for the oncologist to call.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to drive to Philadelphia with Emma to look at the
UPenn Vet School, something which I am looking forward to with much
happy anticipation and feel like I'm probably going to have to fight
with the oncologist about.

Silver lining - CT angiogram was on the same machine and read by same
radiologist as my follow up scan on 5/13.

5/13 - largest liver lesion 4.5 X 4.0 cm
6/1 - largest liver lesion 3.8 X 2.7 cm

Woohoo!