...is clearly not a talent of mine!
Short story: I am doing fine and just need to get medications adjusted
- at least to the point where they will stop fighting each other!
Long story - Very long story:
Since about the middle of December, I have not felt as well as I thought I should. For a while I just wrote it off to the holidays. On the Monday after Christmas I decided to do something about that and called Dr. D. She had me come in to the office that day. I was complaining of rapid heart rate and light-headedness with just the slightest exertion. She had some lab work done and did an exam. No problems found. Labs were all good, lungs sound fine, blood pressure is under control, everything is good as far as she can determine. She suspected that I might be experiencing a side effect of the Tarceva that I am taking. Neither of us wanted to interfere with that so she referred me to a cardiologist who could probably prescribe something to keep my heart rate down. I got an appointment with the cardiologist for New Years Eve.
The cardiologist did a routine exam, EKG, etc. and told me to come back the next week when I would be set up with a heart monitor to wear for 24 hours and to get an Echo cardiogram when I go back to return the monitor. That all worked fine and I just had to wait for results. She scheduled me for a stress test on 1/21/10 (yesterday).
Meanwhile, I started to experience severe lower back pain to the point where I couldn't get out of bed without an engineering plan! This, I decided, was a job for my primary care doctor so I went to see him last Thursday. One of these days I am going to change primary care doctors. This one just doesn't give me the "warm fuzzies". He concluded that the pain was muscular (and was probably right) and prescribed an anti-inflammatory medication. I asked him to check to see if that was O.K. with Tarceva (knowing that it wasn't). He looked it up and when he saw that it was not, he said, "I don't know what else to give you." :-\ So, I said that I would call Dr. D. for advice. She prescribed two other pain relievers and I have been taking those for a week with good results. (Really, really need to come up with a better pseudonym for her)
Yesterday I was scheduled for the stress test mentioned above at 1:15 p.m. and I had an appointment with Dr. D. at 2:15 p.m. to get results from the brain MRI that I had had on Monday. Everybody in the cardiologists office knew that and assured me that there would be plenty of time. Thankfully, both are in the same building because I arrived for the test at 1:00 p.m., was wired up for it at 1:15 p.m. and then waited, and waited and waited... At 2:00 p.m. the receptionist came into the room and said that she had paged the doctor and she would be back in 5 minutes. She offered me the choice of waiting or being "unclipped" from the leads and going downstairs for my oncology appointment first and returning for the test afterwards. I chose to be "unclipped".
Results of the MRI are consistent with past ones. Nothing new found. This is good. Everything else - labs, blood pressure, lung function, etc. - are also good. No problems there. I go back in six weeks.
Back to the cardiologists office. It is now 3:00 p.m. The tech "reclips" me and the doctor comes in within minutes. She does some preliminary testing involving my lying down, sitting up and then standing up several times. Her decision was that the stress test would have no point. She could see what she needed to see without my having to get on the treadmill. "You will just get tired" she told me. Then she began thinking about what to do. We ran through my symptoms again and her suspicion was that I was dehydrated and she wanted me to go down to the Emergency room for a fluid infusion. She also wanted to alter my medications which required that she talk to Dr. D. I suggested that she ask Dr. D. if I could get the fluid infusion at Dr. D's office instead of the ER. This surprised her as she had no idea that they could do that there. She made the call, they talked a while about how to adjust my meds and then I went back down to oncology where I spent the next 90 minutes in the infusion room.
When all was said and done, I got home after 6 hours at the hospital with two new prescriptions, instructions to put away two that I had been taking (in case they need to make a return appearance), feeling a bit better but totally exhausted. Now, wasn't that FUN?
If you read this far I thank you for your perseverance. You are a truly good person :-)
Thanks, as always, for the support that you all give to me in so many ways.
Rita