24 Tuesday Mar 2009
Have decided to get creative about this …
Had the latest PET scan last Thursday, after having been “rescued” by my new oncologist a few days earlier. She was the first person since all this started last May to point out that CEA marker tests were totally useless in my case (they always ended up “normal” even when I actually had tumours) and also suggested that CT scans were probably not going to be that helpful either. Hence the latest PET scan. And well, it wasn’t very good news …
19 Thursday Mar 2009
Posted in cancer, food & drink, friends, health & happiness, hospitals, photos, sevilla
That’s Pilar, aka “mi Pili”, and one third of The Team.
Yesterday I had my third PET scan, which had been recommended by my new oncologist last Friday. Susan (Pip) couldn’t come with me for this one as she has a friend from the US visiting, and so I was very lucky that my friend Carmen was available. Based on the last two PETs, I told her we would probably be out of there in about three hours. Wrong! We ended up there for six hours, so I definitely owe her one. Though she said she didn’t mind at all as she had nothing planned that afternoon and had brought books and some stuff from work, plus when we were both waiting together we talked, played Hangman on my iPhone, went for a snack, and had quite a good time…
13 Friday Mar 2009
Posted in cancer, health & happiness, hospitals, rants
Met with my new oncologist this morning.
First of all I have to say that Ana is fabulous. Very patient, very straightforward, very clear … in fact, I spent over an hour talking things over with her. Given that she is the “sub-directora” (what’s that in English?) of the oncology department at my hospital, part of me felt a bit guilty about taking up so much of her time. But if I hadn’t kept asking questions we would never have got to the place we are now with my treatment. Which is still very confusing but, as Ana said, at least I will feel like I am doing everything possible…
06 Friday Feb 2009
Yay! My CT scan and blood test results came back normal!
So that means a happy thumbs-up “all clear” until next time (in 3 months).
It was such a relief when Ricardo called me late yesterday afternoon with the good news. And today he is going to set up an appointment with his oncologist friend Ana so that I don’t have to go back to those other oncs I’ve been seeing. I was a bit confused because I thought each oncology group was for a specific type of cancer, and I’ve seen all three oncs in my group. Well, it turns out that Ana is not only a specialist in breast and colon cancer, but she’s also the second in command of the whole department. And I’ve been told she’s a very no-nonsense kind of person, so I hope I feel more comfortable with her.
So … should I go get that mini ‘puter now?
30 Friday Jan 2009
It’s true that I don’t really start functioning properly until I’ve had my 1.5 cups of steaming hot coffee in the morning, preferably brought to my bedside by Nog so I can stay snuggled under the duvet with my laptop until I have to get up and face the day. But yesterday wasn’t a typical day because I had the dreaded CT scan scheduled and so, even after the usual amount of morning coffee, I decided to stay in bed awhile longer, snuggle cats, and try to forget what was going to happen.
As it turned out, and compared to previous “scan days”, it could have been much worse…
casa azahar 