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.