Neurology Department (or Adding Yet Another Doctor)

Finished third chemo of round II yesterday. I am finding that the side effects are starting sooner and lasting longer - mostly the being tired. After chemo on Mondays, Tuesdays are turning out to be my best days, followed by Sundays. Today (Tuesday) I went to the grocery store and did some light housework. I noticed that I can't really taste anything, which is a bummer. Oh well!

Last Tuesday I had my consultation with the Neurologist to see if anything could be done for my neuropathy (nerve damage due to the taxol). I met the nurse who takes vitals, then the doctor's nurse who asks lots of questions, then the resident who works with the doctor, then I talked to the actual doctor for about 10 minutes...

I spent most of my time with the resident. She had me walk normally, she had me walk a straight line, she had me walk on my toes and she had me walk on my heels. I couldn't do any of them without help (except the first one). I will definitely fail any kind of a field test for driving under the influence!!!

Then she checked my reflexes. Apparently I am missing some.

The fun part came when she checked my nerves to see how much I could feel. I can feel a Q-tip sliding down my leg until we get near my ankle. Then she switched to a pin - an open safety pin. I couldn't feel any sticks except the center of the bottom of my right foot and my ankles. The first time I felt the pin stick I jumped and asked if she had been sticking me that hard the whole time and she said yes. Disconcerting.

She checked my eyes, strength (pushing against her), ears, and throat.

The windup of all of that - this is from the 10 minutes I spent with the doctor - is that they did not want to recommend a reduced dose of taxol "because of my situation". He did give me a prescription (big surprise) for something to help reduce the numbing, but we agreed that I would only fill it if I thought I needed to.

He set up an appointment for me to see a physical therapist for "gait" therapy. Apparently they are going to teach me how to walk so I don't fall as much. Did I mention I have been falling? It's just weird. I get slightly off balance and I cannot recover. Faron laughs at me sometimes as I totter through the house. (Laugh or cry, laugh or cry).

Anyway, I feel kind of stupid going, but the doctor says he gets great feedback from his patients who say this therapy really helps more than anything else.

I will let you know how it goes. Gait therapy!

My next chemo on Monday is the last for this round and I will get a week off. Looking forward to it!

We are flying Connor to Portland on Saturday so he will be ready to go hunting with Papa and Uncle Denny next week. I imagine he will get to spend some time with his Calallen cousins as well. I told him he needs to focus on meat this year - he got a couple of nice deer last year that turned into head mounts - who knew they were that expensive!!! Anyway, this year I just want to spend my money on meat processing!!!

Love to you all! As always, we appreciate the prayers!
Kelli

Finally! Some great news today! Praise God!

First we give tribute to the end of football season. This is Connor and his beautiful date Jordan about to leave for the Homecoming dance. You can clearly see how excited Connor is to be getting such attention. I believe there were at least three cameras shooting at this point. Oh well, your baby only goes off to his first dance once! I am sure Jordan's parents feel the same way. Someday the kids will understand what all the fuss is about.

Anyway, I saw my regular medical oncologist today for the first time in 5 weeks. This is a standard visit to see how I am tolerating the weekly taxol. This last week I threw up twice and fell twice - one of those times I hit my head on a fence post and have a boo-boo. Connor was home at the time and came outside when he heard the ker-THUNK. He found me crying, but I finally convinced him I wasn't hurt so much as embarrassed and just plain MAD. When I was telling my doctor about it today, he asked if I called 9-1-1 (like I was supposed to do). I told him "no - I called Kristi (my sister-in-law)" and he said that was just as good. We talked about why when I hit on one side of my head, the other side hurt. He said football players get the same injuries because when your head hits one side, your brain can bounce off the other side - YIKES! We also talked about the lack of feeling in my toes and feet and how tired I am. Since I am no longer working, I get to rest a lot. Go to the store, hang on to the basket, come home and take a nap. Go outside and water the plants, come in and take a nap. Make dinner, go lie down. You get the idea.

My doc gave me a bunch of tests similar to what police give suspected drunk drivers and I pretty much failed. It isn't so much that I am dizzy. I just lose my balance easily. We agree I would not wear my crocs anymore and would go barefooted around the house. We also agreed that I would see a neurologist. But between you and me, I don't really care what the neurologist says, if taxol is working, I am sticking with it!

Speaking of taxol working, my protein tumor marker 27.29 went down from 230 to 178. This is the protein that has always predicted tumor growth and why we changed my last chemo. Although the body scans showed tumor stability, the 27.29 was taking off, indicating that tumors were growing somewhere we were not monitoring. Now that it is dropping, that's an indication that the growing is slowing down as well. YAY!!

I really feel hopeful today for the first time in a while. IT was a good trip and now it is raining outside - God giving me more gifts so my seeds will spout!

Love you all!
Counting my blessings!
Kelli