What a way to end a year

Sammy whined during the night and woke me up from a dead sleep. I tried to lift my head, but pain shot through it and I noticed that my throat was dry and sore. As I walked with him to the door I noticed that there wasn't too much of me that didn't hurt, and I was having chills. When I opened the door to let him out, we found out that it was pouring rain. Sammy looked up at me with his bassett eyes as if to say "can't you make it stop?". I told him "either in or out, I'm not staying here all night." And he went out. I lay down on the futon to wait for him to come back in and he didn't take his time, for once he came right back in. We went back to bed, with me hoping to sleep off whatever this demon was. I didn't wake up until 1:00 pm. I'm glad that I have a day tomorrow to try to get rid of this. I'm glad that I don't have any plans for tonight. I think my new years eve party is going to include the futon, a quilt and some green tea.

Saddam is Dead

The world must be a better place.

Rescheduled Appointment

The only thing that has been keeping me somewhat sane about my surgeon finding two new masses is knowing that I'd be going to my oncologist soon and he'd do a tumor marker test. It is perversly comforting to know that my tumor markers are only 13, or only 10. In the same vein, when they reached 33 one time I climbed the walls for three months until I'd seen that they'd come down to 12. I've heard that most oncologist don't even do the tests because they are unreliable. Fine, but they serve a purpose for him, and I like knowing what they are. Wouldn't you know it, I just got a call from his office. They needed to rescedule my appointment. I don't want to complain. They don't do that too much and I'm sure there is a good reason. But the appointment was scheduled for two weeks later. Now I have two new masses and no turmor marker test. It is amazing how little it takes to push me off the cliff.

Preventing Breast Cancer

The cheerful oncologist says that studies show that eating olive oil may help prevent breast cancer. A different study that Dr. Crippen sited in his blog suggest that doing housework will protect against breast cancer (good luck with that one. Let me know how it's working for ya.) Another lifetime ago I belonged to a support group called La Leche League that claimed that breast feeding was a protection against breast cancer. I have also read that weight control, limiting drinking, regular exercize, and not smoking will add protection from breast cancer. It does seem to me that everyone is spinning whatever action they want achieved as a protection against breast cancer. I wonder if we could convince someone to do a study to see if receiving diamonds and roses protects the receiver from cancer also.

Revelation

I'd noticed for a while that no one ever leaves me comments on my blog. Really, it kind of hurt my feelings. I enjoy blogging and reading other blogs, but it seemed like no one was reading mine. Then I tried leaving a comment from another screen name. I had no idea that only AOL users could leave comments on AOL journals. I'm hoping that explains what's going on. I'm not married to AOL journals so I decided to move the journal over here. Well not all of it. Some of it (maybe most of it) can be trashed, but I will move my favorite posts here. And I'll definately leave that one up until they get tired of me and just kick me off. So for now, this is my new blog home.

Cardiology

I went to the cardiologist yesterday to find out if the swelling in my feet had anything to do with the condition of my heart. The good news is that my heart is doing fine in it's own distorted sort of way. My cardiologist's nurse was reluctant to give me an appointment until I explained to her that besides having a congenital heart defect and an established ischemia, I'd also undergone treatment with Adriamycin and Cytoxan. She grudgenly relented and I had an appointment. I woke up in the morning and wouldn't you know it the swelling had gone down to near normal, so I was a bit concerned that I was going to lack creduality. The appointment wasn't until 10:00, so my edema had a chance to recover a bit and by the time I went in my feet were reasonably swollen, though nothing like what they had been in the preceding weeks. I had an echo. My effusion factor was on the low end of normal where it has been since I finished chemo. My ekg was predictably abnormal in all the known places. My blood pressure was a bit high and I was asked to keep up with it for a few weeks (oops! I forgot to go downstairs and have it taken today.) My cardiologist came in after I talked with the nurse and looked at my feet. He asked what the dosage of Adriamycin was and was kind of shocked when I told him it was 550 mg. He said that was a large dose. Then he said that I was right to come in right away, even though the tests were normal. Then he wanted to do an echo of the veins in my legs and explained that if it was abnormal I'd need to be hospitalized right away. But even that was normal (Thank you God!). Then he asked me to come back in 6 months and sent me on my way. I left glad that I'd gone, for no other reason than I'd suspected for a while that my Cardiac-electrophysiologist specialist wasn't paying any attention to the effect that the chemo had on my already deformed heart. Now I know that he understands the ramifications of my treatments had on my heart.
In two weeks I still have the appointment with my PCP, and I'm glad that I can tell her that it isn't my heart. But after doing a google search, I'm not all together thrilled with the balance of what could be causing me to gain two or three shoe sizes every day. It is all things that I don't want to be diagnosed with. Not that I'd want to be diagnosed with cardiomyopathy or deep vein thrombosis; I just don't want a new diagnosis, or treatment plan, or medication or new doctors to try to keep in the loop.

On that same day I have an appointment with my Oncologist and I'll find out if my Surgeon is keeping him in the loop.

I guess I'm just going to have to put up with the Bozo feet for a few more weeks.