Feeling Better

My mysterious rash finally went away after two doses of Benadryl. I still have some itching on the upper part of my body, but I don't think that's related to the rash from last weekend. When I saw my doctor this past week, she said I will probably have to take steroids the day before I have a scan to prevent this from happening again (if that was the cause).

My counts were good this week, except for being low on potassium and magnesium. I took a few supplements to give those a boost. I started back on my two week cycle of chemo on Wednesday night. I felt brave and decided not to take any anti-nausea medication with it, which ended up being a mistake. I woke up around 5am Thursday morning with major nausea. Fortunately I took some Zofran (anti-nausea drug) right away, fell back asleep, woke up an hour later, and was fine to go to work. I guess from now on I just have to take Zofran the first few days of treatment until my body gets used to it again.

My oncologist did not have the results of my PET/CT. Because it was done at Radiology-Oncology for treatment planning purposes, they don't relay the results to other doctors. I'll have to ask about the results when I go back to Radiology this Thursday. She also said a chest x-ray wasn't necessary, since obviously the PET/CT would show a lot more detail and she didn't think we would see results from the new chemo this quickly anyway.

The next step is for me to go back on Thursday for a final measurement. If all goes well, it would be possible for me to start radiation treatment on Friday. I still don't know how many weeks the treatment would be, I'm just hoping they'll be able to accommodate my work schedule. I'm still waiting to hear back from UCSF regarding a 2nd opinion. My guess is that if I don't hear from them by Thursday, I'll go with what Stanford has to offer.

Work continues to be incredibly busy as I'm sure many of you might have guessed since I no longer have time to email or log on to IM. The house has been keeping us busy on the weekends also. Last weekend we tore out the hardwood floor in the kitchen/dining room area and today we're looking into getting the gas line in for the new stove. We went to a few appliance places during the week to take a look at new stoves and I've already found my dream one. I can't wait until I can cook on a new stove, I'm sure nobody will be able to get me out of the kitchen :)