I've been really delinquent in updating the last post and the results from August's tests. When KU Med Center used the MyChart electronic feature, they were rather haphazard, slow to post, and when they did so, so detailed and in such medicalese that I rarely could understand much of what they were saying.
Stormont-Vail is very fast to post, consistent in doing so, but concise to the point of equal incomprehensibility. The results of the August tests on my left should were reported in just a couple of sentences. There is a 7 cm metastatic lesion on the scapula, but no indication as to whether that was new or just a reference to what had happened five years ago. The other sentence said that it was impossible to tell whether the humerus is involved. Again, I don't know whether that's a new observation or an old one. Dr/ Hashmi didn't seem to be alarmed by any of the results, so we assume that the comments are from the original metathesis in 2010.
The arm has been feeling better. The leg and hip still don't function completely smoothly, but are better. Since the last post, however, most of the problems have had to do with the G-I track. Some days the thought or sight of food nauseates me; sometimes my appetite is good. Last week was the third week on chemo, and the third week is always hard with nearly constant diarrhea. At some point, my body is telling me, we'll need to reduce the dosage of the chemo again: we've gone from 800mg/day to 600 to 400 to 400 three weeks out of four. Although reducing the dosage seems the logical next step, there is the accompanying worry about how much it can be lowered before it loses efficacy.
Meanwhile, this week, not taking the Votrient, means that my blood pressure is hard to regular, often falling to alarmingly low levels. We went to the S-V Cancer Center yesterday to talk with Dr. Hashmi's nurse (Friday Dr. Hashmi is at KU Med). We'll adjust the blood pressure medication, but actually, I go back on the chemo on Sunday, so there really isn't much time to judge any results.
So that's the health news for the lasr month.
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