UPDATES:
So last week was a busy one. On Thursday (12/3) I had a follow up appointment with ENT doctor and the speech pathologist. The doctor recorded my voice and played back my voice from the first appointment to compare. Wow, what a difference, I wish it would last. He informed me that “sometimes” it can last longer but, lets be honest, I never fall in that catorgory so I’ll assume it will be 2-3 months. I am already hearing it back to the way it was. The doctor left and the speech pathologist stayed to schedule my next appointment with someone in Mountain View since it is closer to home. She didn’t want to wait until January when I am back so we are doing a video appointment on 12/23. Before she left I asked her if there were things I could do in the meantime so she printed out a few things that I can do.
Friday 12/4 was my appointment with the eye specialist at Stanford which I was told to expect to be there 3 hours! My appointment was at 1pm and I got called back 5-10 minutes after we got there. After the nursing assistant asked me several medical history questions I was taken to another room where I had 2 different images taken. From there I had an ultrasound of both eyes, which was nasty. She put numbing drops in my eye first and then put all this goop on a little probe that was then placed all over my actual eye. From there, back to the waiting room to wait to see the doctor. Also, the place was packed! Especially for there being a pandemic. We finally got called back to a room and of course the resident comes right in to see us. He does his exam and asks some questions and then leaves and tells us he is oging to get the doctor. Well it wasn’t long before he came back and told me “we need another image”. At this point it is 3:45pm and I tell Mark that I am waiting until 4pm and we are leaving. The tech comes in to get me to take the other picture and she must have heard me saying that we were leaving. I sit down at the machine and she says to me, “I know it has been a long time but there are things going on with your eyes so please don’t leave”. I head back to the exam room and now I know that something is wrong. Finally the doctor comes in and basically explains to us that I have 2 lesions, 1 on each eye, that are cancer. We obviously don’t have a baseline so he is not sure if what he sees is new, or it has been there and getting better. Bottom line, he wants to see me back in 6 weeks to take all the same images and compare. I am to contact him with any loss of vision or if I see floaters in my eye.
Well I couldn’t get out of the building faster. I lost it and was crying hysterically. This may seem crazy b/c I know that I have cancer pretty much all over my body but, when I hear a new “cancer” it’s like getting the initial diagnosis all over again.
It has been a crazy but good week. I saw my Oncologist Monday and she approved me to head back East to see my family. She agrees with us that it is better, if there is a better, to drive. Tomorrow, Friday 12/11, I get my Faslodex and Zometa in the afternoon. Then we will be packing for the road trip. We will be driving from Saturday 12/12 to Thursday 12/17 or Friday 12/18 so I may not be updating next week.
Cheers…..
Jen's Cancer Journey 