Friday, January 7, 2011

Talking leads to Coughing

So, one of the things I have found out in my Esophageal Cancer research is that people who have asthma AND the cancer will tend to have a rather annoying cough.  And in my case, it starts as soon as I start talking in more than short sentences.  This has made my phone conversations with my sister, Wendy, a bit of a challenge, but I know she doesn't mind one bit.

I saw my Primary Care doc today, and I did start the coughing, but he says my lungs still sound pretty darned good.  We talked about the treatments I've had so far, and the joy of the two really toxic chemos, Taxol and Carboplatin, combined with the radiation treatments being rather debilitating.  But all in all, he's really pleased with how I'm coming through it all.  He says that a few years back, esophageal cancer patients spent most of their first chemo round in the hospital; it was that hard on them.  Indeed, Dr. Fastenberg had already told me that quite often, even now, with the regimen I was on, he has patients end up in hospital.

The reason for the PC visit was to start getting my meds through MedCo, so I don't go bankrupt.  I don't like using Medco, as they have really screwed up my meds in the past, but I don't have a choice, now.  It's just so much less expensive to use them.  Let's just hope they have learned from their mistakes and can be trusted to dispense meds as ordered.

It was a good PC visit; he's very straight-forward not unlike my oncology docs.  We talked about my latest blood tests and that if the liver problem shows up again, we'll discontinue my statins and see how that goes.  He says we have to be more concerned with nutrition than with glucose levels, although we have plenty of options to work on those.

No, he just wants me to concentrate on my nutrition, and remaining upright, and there's no problem with either of those areas. ;)  In fact, I went to see him with no walker and not even my cane.  Granted, it's only steps from parking into his office, but believe me, if I had felt the need, I would have still had the cane.

Now for a nice, relaxing weekend. Still we have the low sixties as our high, but beats those middle fifties any day.  And the sun shines, and all is right in my little world.  Well, except for this stupid cancer.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Tequila
    Well, that all sounds pretty positive. I know how taxing chemo and radiation can be after watching my sister. She would just come home from her session and sleep and sleep for hours. Then with all the steroids they gave her she would eat like a horse almost every hour or so, she was starving all the time. I went over to Scotland for a month to make sure she was ok, needless to say I was doing all the cooking trying to give her all the good healthy stuff.
    Chris and I use Medco for our meds, we used them in AZ too all the time we were there and never had any problems with them. Maybe you have just been luckey eh :D

    Your weather sounds glorious right about now. We had about 3 inches of snow overnight last nite and are due for some more tomorrow. Also Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, so the investment of the snow blower was well worth it.

    I met my new Primary care doc yesterday. He is fabulous. The reason I chose him was because his receptionist answered the phone on the first ring and was not rude, that was a really good decision. I also had looked him up online and he was on my shortlist but he was not my first choice, geeze how wrong can you be. Some of the others I called to register with did not sound too swift if you know what I mean. I was left hanging on the phone for ages with one woman who was very rude when she eventually came on the line, I hung up on her.

    I see my new pulmo on Monday. My new doc said he would have referred me to him, he said he is one of the best up here, so I made a good choice there too, and again he was not my first choice, go figure. He even went out of his way to meet Chris in the waiting room even though Chris did not intend to register with him yesterday. They got to talking about golf and how the doc is going to St Andrews in the summer, somewhere I am very familiar with as I was brought up about 20 miles from there and my son was born there. Needless to say they ended up like old friends, so he registered too. Aint it funny the way things work out.


    Girl, you have a good weekend and get lots of healing sunlight, something we are sadly lacking up here of late. My poor dog Lucy follows it around the house, we find her sleeping in the strangest places. Get lots of rest and good food. Sending good energy your way.
    Peace out
    Fay in the family room

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fay, isn't it the truth that a doctor's staff can make or break him? I don't care how great a doctor you are; if you can't get good help, I don't want to deal you.

    Sounds like you got a winner in every aspect! But don't you HATE having to find new doctors?

    Well, honey, you keep warm; Spring is just around the corner...this is what I keep telling myself.

    Hugs!

    ReplyDelete

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