June 14, 2021

Last week –

I had an interesting week. The last time I saw my oncologist, I brought up some pain and asked her if she could look at my scans to see if there is in fact disease in the areas. She took a look and was not specific so I asked her if she could have Dr. Marquez, radiation oncologist, look at my scans and give her opinion on things and if I needed radiation. Next thing I knew, I got a phone call telling me that Dr. Marquez wants to see me in person to examine me and look at my scans. That appointment was last Thursday.

So I get to my appointment and the MA who roomed me, asked me to change into a gown, on my top half. He stepped out and told me the doctor would be in shortly. She walks in the room and the first thing she says is, “whats going on with your breathing?”. I knew that I was breathing heavy because I had just changed my top. So I told her that. She then asked me some follow-up questions – how long have you had this, has it gotten worse, do you cough, do you cough up blood??? I informed her that I’ve been this way for awhile now, it hasn’t gotten worse, yes I cough, no blood comes up. Dr. Marquez sat down at the computer and pulled up my PET scan to review. She starts at the top of my body and works down to my lungs. There she says, “the masses aren’t blocking any of your airways, but if they grow and block anything, you will be coughing up blood and then we would treat you.” All that is good to know I guess. Her thought is my breathing and cough are just from having disease in my lungs, treatment, and radiation, all combined can cause problems. She told me there’s no point in treating my lungs now, and it would likely make things worse. All that said, we moved onto the reason I was there, right scapula and b/l hips. Dr. Marquez continued looking at the scan and found the lesion on my right scapula and was able to push on it, which hurt. Then she scrolled down to my hips and pointed out all the disease around the top part of my hips. She felt that the right hip (where I had the hip replacement) was worse and that she would treat that first because when the radiation is done, the bones get stronger. Then, when I am ready, we would treat the left hip.

That all sounded good to me. I will get the planning CT this Wednesday and then start radiation on June 28th. Pretty sure she plans to do 10 treatments on each area. She can do the scapula and hip during the same appointment. I’m excited to get started on that. The only downside with the treatment is fatigue. I feel like I have that anyway so I take a longer nap for a few weeks:))

It will be an intersting week with the mask requirements being lifted if you are fully vacinnated. Even though we could have gone out to eat, we have not been out and hopefully in the next few weeks we will go out to eat!

Until next time…