Tuesday 28 April 2009

Complete & Utter. . .

waste of time and diesel for a 3-hour round trip.

I saw the oncologist. I am to have another set of blood tests and another CT scan on 11 May. With those results, she will make a decision about treatment when I see her again on the 14th.

I had questions. None of the answers seemed liked answers to me. I'm starting to feel like one of those people I usually yell at for not getting enough information. It's really hard when the doctors don't understand that you want it all. Or think you won't understand. Or that you'll be demoralised. Or whatever.

Where's the cancer now? Restricted to my abdomen. But spread about -- besides bladder and intestines? In my abdomen.

Chemo: If nothing has changed since the last scan, chemo will be put off. However, I can't expect the cancer to "behave" itself, so when it reactivates, chemo will start again.

Whether it's active or not, wouldn't chemo still act to reduce the tumours and, therefore, be a good thing? No. Why? I cannot get a satisfactory answer to this or else I am being dense, but the answer just seems to be no.

The visit could have been put off until the 14th, it seems to me.

My pain is gone, but have I mentioned that my fingernails are peeling away from the finger?

Sigh.

10 comments:

  1. Fungus will make nails lift away. Remember the toe photos I posted way back when? < insert yukky face >
    Well crap, I don't know what to say about the runaround. Stomache ache better, though?

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  2. I don't think it's fungus. It's the chemo. Sorry this is frustrating dealing with your doctors. Can you be more forceful? I'm sure they don't want to keep you on chemo unless it's absolutely necessary because it's so hard on your body. I hope Karen pipes in soon. I'm not really any help. Except that I know my friend went though similar nail issues but on her feet, also the skin on the bottom of her feet cracked so deep... She couldn't type for awhile because her fingers hurt so bad. :-(((. {{{hugs}}} we want answers too!!!

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  3. How fricken' fracken' frustrating! I would think that chemo when the cancer isn't active would damage the healthy cells w/o doing a darn thing to the tumors. More cost than benefit, sts. Plus, don't you need to rest and rejuvenate for a time? I'm gonna ask the docs I work with. Keep your chin up. You're apparently feeling good enough to complain:)

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  4. Can't answer your questions, but you may have to tell them flat out - just tell me what the deal is and stop going around the frickin frackin bushes! I had to do that when Don was in the hospital. Anything I didn't understand, I remembered and looked it up myself. Got lots of good answers between the docs and some medical sites (usually .edu or .gov).

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  5. if you still have tumors after chemo, then the same chemo wont work on those. but you could have tumors that are there, but not cancer. So, the cancer is gone, but still have tumors. Make sense? So, if cancer again on the pet scan, different chemo drug will be tried to see if it responds or same chemo drug will be used to kill same cancer as before. That one I am not sure of. You can use Lanolin for any skin things. It is a nice protectant. How is your surgery scar healing? They need you to heal from surgery before they will do any more chemo also. A friend with pancreatic cancer, still hasnt healed scar, so no chemo at all yet. Will keep praying Margo. Are you drinking anti-oxidants? Essiac tea?

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  6. Both right about the nails. It's the chemo, but I've been given a fungicide nail varnish to use.

    Essiac? I'm drinking rooibos.
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooibos#Nutritional_and_health_benefits)
    We gave up real tea some time back.

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  7. google Essiac tea. It is a "cancer killing" tea. one of the sites I came up with http://cancertutor.com/Cancer/Essiac.html

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  8. Tea tree oil is an excellent antifungal...made my lovely toenail fungus go away (but came back after I stopped using it.)
    From what I understand they don't do chemo while a person (or dog) is healing from surgery.

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  9. Chemotherapy attacks cells that replicate rapidly. Hence some of the delightful side effects-hair loss, as hair is always growing; nausea, as stomach cells are always replicating; anemia, as ditto blood cells; etc. I would guess nails are the same, as they are growing, though not as rapidly.
    If the tumors aren't growing, chemo won't really attack them, but will attack all your normally replicating cells, causing sucky side effects without really doing much to the tumor.
    I would be frustrated beyond all human comprehension if my doctors weren't explaining this to me.
    Karen

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  10. Thank you, Karen. Now that *really* makes sense.

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