I woke up at 7:30 this morning, 15 minutes before my alarm was set to go off. I wanted to get to the lab early to make sure my sodium results were in ahead of tomorrow’s port-insertion surgery.
The line at the lab was long, so I waited almost an hour to get my blood drawn. They had to stick me twice.
I made it home in time to do a 10:00 telephone interview, but have no idea if I got what I needed or if anything I wrote down even makes sense. My head feels foggy today, so I took the rest of the day off.
Right after my interview, I got a call from the hospital to schedule my surgery for tomorrow. I told the woman on the phone about the sodium issue and that I was waiting for lab results. She said they could still do the surgery if my sodium wasn’t much lower than it was on Friday, but they’ll have to do it under conscious sedation instead of general anesthesia. I’m okay with that.
At 2:15, I left for my scheduled appointment with the oncologist. On the way there, I got a call from my PCP’s office. My sodium seems to be holding at 127, so we’re good to go on the port insertion. My appointment is at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow.
The oncologist said my bone marrow biopsy came back fine, and he went over the details of my chemotherapy. I start on Wednesday and will go 3 days a week every 21 days for a total of 18 weeks. I asked him what we were going to do about the sodium issue and he said it will stop after my treatments start.
He asked me to hold off on the palliative care team for now for a couple of reasons. The first being that I already have four doctors and the palliative care team would throw one more into the mix. I told him I was concerned that my doctors didn’t seem to be communicating and he assured me that wasn’t true. He said he had spoken to my radiation oncologist twice today and once to my PCP.
The other reason he wants me to hold off on the palliative care is that he’s confident the team I have now is in a better position to manage the pain and side effects associated with my treatments (my biggest concerns) than a palliative care team would be. He also said I could call his office 24/7 if I had any questions or problems. So for now, I have agreed.
Overall, it was a good appointment. I left the office feeling better than I did going in. I finally feel like I’m ready to get started.
Good news on the sodium. It’s good that you now have a plan and you know the timeline. I don’t understand what you mean by 3 days a week every 21 days. Does that mean that you get treatment 3 days one week and then have a couple weeks off to recover?
Yes. My next treatments will start three weeks after the first ones.
Well a game plan is in place… let the progress begin!
Thanks for having Teresa forward the blog. My thoights and prayers are with you. Love, Aunt B.