Doctor's appointment and CT scan

Dear friends,

I hope you are having a wonderful Wednesday.  I can't believe that it's June 1st already and that this year is nearly half over.  I don't know if I already mentioned this before in a previous post, but while I was in the ER/hospital during Christmas, one of my Doctors told Kevin that I just might make 6 months.  In hindsight, I was in pretty bad shape back then, so it is humbling to be here and kicking.  Don't get mad at the Doctor though ... he is a good doctor and was probably only just trying to prepare Kevin in a just in case scenario.

This past chemo treatment has been a bit different than some of the previous ones.  I didn't really have any vomiting issues this time around, but boy, I was nauseated at least once or twice a day for most of the 2 weeks.  The consistency factor here seems to be the inconsistency of it all.  I'm pretty much on or have available to me all the best nausea medicines so it's just a matter of what seems to work best for the majority of the time.  I plan on doing some acupuncture, but I'm waiting until all the kids are in school this fall and it will make planning appointments so much easier.

It's a hard game to play, trying to give me the opportunity to "live" life  with a resemblance of normalcy while treating me with chemo doses that do their job, but don't rob me of that "normalcy" factor.  We looked over my weight issue and it turns out that I weigh the same as a year ago, but of course how that weight is distributed  and consists of is totally different.  Last year I could easily run 3 miles in 30 minutes, now I can barely manage 1 mile in 20 minutes.  Trips to stores, spending time outside, activity in general sometimes lead to nausea spells in the evening.  Fortunately it's not all the time, but I have yet to figure why certain activities do and why other activities don't.

Perfect example was the evening before yesterday and the middle of the night last night.  I should be on the "good" side of chemo, but for whatever reason the nausea wanted to rear it's ugly head.  Last night, I was nauseous enough that I woke up from sleeping to go heave.

I did get something figured out though.  A little over a week ago, I had vomited some blood in the morning and my Doctors and I decided to let things be since there weren't any other symptoms occurring.  We weren't feeling the endoscopy at this time.  Fast forward to last night and I woke Kevin up (the things that he does for me) to analyze the contents of my stomach.  Blood mystery solved though... my gums were bleeding;  kind of gross, but it is really better than the alternative.

When the nausea hits, I get so frustrated and aggravated with my own body.  I want to be active and it is a proven fact that activity is good for chronically ill people.  There is of course a fine line between good activity and being over active, but I have yet to figure this out.  All the same issues that bugged me pre-cancer continue to bug me now. One being the weight issue that plagues many of us.  I would love to lose some weight, but doing this in my state is going to be much harder for me.  Before, I would use exercise and activity as my main tool, but I just can't right now.

This whole dilemma just drives me crazy and I want to wail at my own body, but on the other hand, I don't want to feed my body too much negativity because I know that it would do more harm than good... it's just one of those things that makes me say grrrrr towards myself and life in general.

Finally I will end my post with the update from my CT scan.  The CT scan shows no progression or growth of my tumors and the other stuff that shows up are things just to be aware of and to watch.  All in all, this news is good and life goes on.  I have 3 treatments this month and then I will get to take all of July off.  Will be very interesting to see what happens with the hair growth with a break of two treatments this time around.  My Doctor is such a comedian, he suggested that it just maybe time for a cut and style... NOT!

Here are some excerpts from my official medical report: (google time)

• Chest:  No lymphadenopathy within the chest or axilla.  No suspicious pulmonary nodules.
• Abdomen/Pelvis:  Stable mild thickening of the antrum of the stomach noted..  Small amount of omental nodularity seen anterior to the stomach at midline... measuring 8mm in size stable from prior study.  Additional omental nodule more inferiorly and slightly to the left of midline measures 1.5cm x 0.7 cm
• There is fatty infiltration within the liver (nice huh... this is nothing new... of course I would have a "fatty" liver - this shows up in blood work as slightly elevated cholesterol.  Nothing related to the cancer)
• Uterus is retroverted and normal in size
• Left ovary appears normal
• Within the right ovary there is a small enhancing focus that measures 9 mm in size suspected to represent an involuting corpus luteum given its appearance and probably intraovarian location although metastatic disease not completely excluded.  Close attention to this site recommend on follow-up examinations.
• No new or enlarging lymph nodes within the abdomen or pelvis
• Urinary bladder is unremarkable (love these terms... "unremarkable" - haha)

Thanks to all for visiting...

Until next time,

-Katie