We’ve been a bit slow about getting new posts up on the blog, which I am sure may have worried some of you, particularly after the tone of the last post. Don’t worry; the lack of posting is not a sign that we’ve been overwhelmed or that things have gang agley. Instead, it’s a sign that things are proceeding as expected, and we are actually getting some time for other activities.
Since the end of treatment, I’ve had two follow-up appointments at UWMC. A week after the end, we met with the rad-onc department’s nurse practioner, Barbara Fristoe. She looked me over, said I was doing very well, and maintained the general consensus of the medicos that I was taking a surprisingly small amount of painkillers. The most exciting part of that appointment was getting the agreement to remove my PICC line, since my blood pressure and fluids seemed to be stable. We got the PICC line pulled that afternoon by the friendly folks in the infusion center, which was great.
The second follow-up was a week and two days later, with Dr. Liao. According to him, side effects should have peaked during that week, which certainly jibes with the impressions I had, captured in the last post. Overall, I appeared to Dr. Liao pretty much as expected. He did notice that I’ve lost 5 pounds since the end of treatment, which is more than I lost during the entire 6 weeks I was in treatment. He wasn’t overly concerned, but was glad to hear that I’ve been monitoring it, and taking steps to control that. He instructed us to pay attention and make sure I was getting enough nutrition. (Which, I have to grumpily comment, is easy for people without mucositis to say.)
My next appointment with Dr. Liao is in mid-September, by which time I should have healed up enough for a CT scan to be useful to tell us how I’m doing, and review the effects of the treatment. I also have a follow-up on the med-onc side with Dr. Baik in August, but aside from that, my calendar is remarkably free of medical appointments. It makes a nice change from June.
So now I’m working on recovery. I think I’ve passed the summit, but there’s still a lot of road ahead. We did manage to fit in some non-recovery related activity this weekend, with a fair amount of socializing and some home-improvement activity, which I hope to detail in another post. Today I just wanted to catch us up, and let people know that all is going about as well as we could expect, even though we’ve been quiet.
Thanks for the update, Paul! I’m very glad to hear that you’re continuing to progress on the expected path, and that you’ve gotten the PICC line removed. That at least is one concrete step on the path back to a normal life.
Here’s hoping for further boring progress!
William
It is good to see that you are equaling only CNN in your ability to try to make up something to broadcast when there is no major change in a situation. ;o) This is wonderful! It’s great that it’s downhill from here.
I am very glad to hear that the new norm involves getting to stay AWAY from the hospital! Enjoy your mostly domestic life! Hugs!
soon you will coasting down the mountain wirh the wind in your hair xoxox
Good news!