September Check-in
Hello to whomever has continued to stick with me through this (less informed) aspect of my journey (roughly translated: thank you for continuing to read my blog, when I don’t post much). I still have to go through the pictures from TumorPalooza so I can post a slide show and let you all see the fun and hilarity that was experienced by all who attended. Soon (I hope). Soon.
As for my health, well, that’s been an up and down roller coaster. Two or three weeks before the Palooza, I started having both abdomen and back pain. Nothing major, but enough that I wrote my oncologist about it and he moved up my scans because, “You never complain, so when you do, I take note.” The oncologist put me on extended release morphine (one 15mg pill in the morning; and one 15mg pill in the evening. I was supposed to take that and then use vicodin for break through pain. Well, apparently, morphine and vicodin makes for a powerful cocktail as I was a bit “woozy” at work. As my wife likes to point out, I feel asleep during a meeting with my branch chief (who was totally cool about it, but still…)
The long and short of it is, my wife drives me into work and I try to beg, borrow, or steal a ride home in the afternoon. (Seriously, it means a lot to me that people were so willing to give me a ride. Thanks Matt, Kevin, and Lynn.) Eventually, I realized that I didn’t need the vicodin all that much and the morphine by itself doesn’t woozy me up as much, so I was about to drive myself into work again. Unfortunately, I began to develop a tolerance to the morphine and I told my oncologist about it and his solution was to double up the morphine at night. I did that for the first time last night and let’s just say that I woke up incredibly “woozy” this morning. So it looks like my wife’ll be driving me again.
All this is well and good, but no one can seem to figure out WHY I am having this pain. My oncologist sent me to a spine doc and he told me he didn’t think the pain was from the spine (he said it seemed more typical of cancer-related pain that is at a constant level, rather than spine related pain which typically changes over the course of a day). I go back for another abdomen and pelvis (or abdomen and chest) MRI at the beginning of November to see what, if anything, has changed.
Meanwhile, not to appear like a slackard (after helping to take care of the karate school since Mr. Quinn passed away a couple of months ago, or my work with scouts, I have also taken up the cause to get the two counties that boarder where I live (Gwinnett and Dekalb) as well as the town in which I live (Lilburn) to pass a proclamation announcing that November is pancreatic cancer awareness month. We’ll see what happens. I am thinking about doing so for Atlanta, too.
So there you have it; the last couple of 6 weeks in a nutshell. I will say that one benefit of not having much of an appetite is that I have lost about 15 lbs in the last several weeks. It so much better when the weight is coming off. 
More later.
Merle
Hey Merle- Hoping that all stays well! Did your doc do more scans already or is “moving them up” in November? Just curious.
Thanks-Kym
I’m still here.
See you soon!
p.s. I found the 15lbs!!!
Just thinking about you. Hope that they can find a cause for the pain and that they can make it go away. Sending positive thoughts and energy your way!