What's Up With the Doc 78? - A Week of Ups and Arounds

It's been an interesting week, this last one. Robert, Lindsay and I drove to Hartford to pick up my mother Saturday evening in gray, drizzly gloom. We stayed up that way for dinner and by the time we left the restaurant were visited by a fantastic thunderstorm and deluge of rain. We had a great family weekend and Robert put together a meal on Sunday that had to rank as one of his all time best. Monday Lindsay and my mother and I had lunch in New Haven before dropping Lindsay off at the train to head back home.

Once the Sunday evening storms died down the weather had been everything from a tiny bit dreary to sparkling, but we woke to drenching rain on Wednesday to celebrate Robert's birthday. I worked during the morning and for reasons that will never be clear to me, my left hip selected that morning to suddenly, after five months of pain relief and no cane, become exquisitely painful. I didn't do anything, the onset wasn't associated with a specific action, but it is suddenly much worse. I came home to hit the recliner and the pain meds. My aunt and uncle came over from Long Island to help celebrate Robert's birthday, see my mom while she's here and see me before they head for Florida for the winter. By the time dinner rolled around I was feeling some better so we headed out for what turned out to be one of the very best seafood meals I can ever remember.

Thursday morning I looked in the mirror and realized that I've developed the "moon facies" associated with long-term steroid use. I've been on dexamethasone since the end of August when I was in the emergency department for nausea and now you can tell. Nothing bad or dangerous, I'm just not used to having a round face. I also called the oncologist about the hip pain. He sent me for plain x-rays but the radiologist couldn't even see the hip lesion, much less whether there'd been a fracture or any other change. The oncologist asked if I wanted a scan to help decide what to do, but I had so much pain just getting the plain films I told him I'd think about it over the weekend and we'd talk when I see him on Tuesday. As long as I use my cane and stay off the leg as much as possible I'm OK. I was already pretty limited in standing and walking time with the pain from the spinal mets, so I'm mulling whether I really want to do anything about this or not. When it first showed up last spring there was actually talk of surgery, but I'm not in any way a surgical candidate at this point so it's either stay off it and take meds or talk to radiation oncology to see what they might be able to do. So I'll mull over the weekend and we'll talk to the oncologist on Tuesday.

Other than that, Emma got hit with H1N1 influenza in Colorado. She was miserable and it was miserable for me not to be able to do anything for her, but she seems to have turned the corner and was able to go to a couple of classes yesterday. All other children are healthy (well, Isaac recovering from knee surgery) and busy.

Don't forget to support Team Sunnyside for the National Free to Breathe event in November and send quiet thoughts to my hip.

Lisa