new to forum, diagnostic mammo and ultrasound found large lumps

Susie, I'm sorry you've hit a rough patch. I hope the massage was a good first step.

In Florida our weather goes back and forth this time of year like yours does in Texas. It makes it hard to get dressed for the day, that's for sure.

Yes, it is my oncologist having me take high doses of OTC meds for the bone pain. First I was on the prescription Naproxen, and when that didn't work, she said to go to 800 mg acetaminophen or ibuprofen every 8 hours to see if that worked, before they would move on to prescribing any kind of narcotic. I ended up exchanging a couple of after-hours phone calls with the PA in the last couple of nights and she said that the onc wants me to have a bone scan to rule out that the cancer has spread into my bones. Well, this gives me something new to worry about! My bff had a friend with breast cancer which spread to her spine and she died. The girl was a year younger than I am.

Anyway, the bone scan is set for 3/7, so not too far off. It's a nuclear test, so I have to get an IV of some kind of radioactive substance, then wait 3-4 hours and come back and have the scan done, which takes about an hour. If anything "shows up", then more tests will be ordered, which could include CT scan, PET scan, MRI, and biopsy.

All I can think is money money money. I do not believe for a second that my cancer has spread into my bones. I believe that I am having the VERY COMMON reaction to taxol of BONE PAIN, and that I need a narcotic pain reliever to deal with this level of pain.

I'm going to call the doctor tomorrow and beg/demand to get a prescription to at least handle this pain until all the tests they want to do finally rule out bone cancer.

Best of health and positive thoughts to all who are reading.

Susie, I hope that hot tub did the trick and helped you feel not so much beaten by a baseball bat! She must've been VERY thorough to make laying on a bed too painful.

It took several after hours phone calls but the doctor's office finally wrote a script out for (low dose) Vicodin that my husband picked up and that did the trick. One measly pill every six hours and no more pain.

Unfortunately I ended up getting cold/flu symptoms starting Friday night. Saturday was pretty rough. My temperature got up to 100.3 a couple of times. The magic # is 100.4.... all along my onc has said if my temp ever got to 100.4 I have to go straight to the hospital, so thankfully it never got to that. Sunday the fever was gone, but today, "chemo Monday", the other symptoms were still present---cough, runny nose, watery eyes, general achiness (not in the bones, though), and so when I went for my chemo she could not give it to me, we have to skip this week. I am on such a tight schedule. I had ONE WEEK to spare to finish chemo before my son's college graduation. Now that one week is gone. I cannot have any other thing happen to stop my progress. Honestly my son's graduation is THE only good thing happening in my entire life. My marriage is a mess, we are financially ruined, my first born, brilliant, gorgeous, talented son is doing God-knows-what, I am fat, bald, and oh, I have cancer. Being able to see my younger son graduate is the ONLY positive thing I have to hang onto.

I feel partially responsible for getting sick, because I "went out"...... I ventured into the real world. A restaurant and a couple antique stores, and my immune system is ruined enough from chemo (and a loss of lymph nodes, too, I suppose), that I can't fight off a single germ.

So for the next 2 months I am going nowhere and seeing no one other than my immediate circle, and all my medical appointments. I have my bone scan set for tomorrow.

Best of health and positive thoughts to all who are reading.

Afternoon E, so sorry to read that you hit another bump in the road with the cold. It always seems like its something sometimes. Hopefully this cold will not linger so you can move forward. But very happy to read your xrays came back clear!!

And finally, a hearing date for your husband's claim. That is just awesome. It is extremely important that the attorney has all of your husbands medical records before the hearing. Does your husband keep the atty informed of his dr visits & the dates he was seen? One thing I learned when dealing with SS, never rely on them having all of the current medical records. I would go as far to contact the atty well in advance to what records he has in his file too.

I have been living on a heating pad, boy the massage really did a number on me. But, I am much looser than I was before. The hot tub helps also but I was a mess before & after, lol.

Keep these good things going your way, its about time!! Take care.

Well, there was no miracle. The improvement to my coughing fits is basically a reduction in how long they last... It used to be up to an hour and a half, once I woke up, or what other "thing" set it off. Now they last anywhere from 10-45 minutes, with 20-25 being the norm. But they are PAINFUL. My stomach muscles and even my rib bones HURT from all the hacking.

And now with me missing two of my scheduled chemos, there is a very good chance that I will not be able to make it to my son's graduation.

Best of health and positive thoughts to all who are reading ...(including me!)

Oh, that does sound fun to have kids for a week! Fun, and busy! I hope you're able to catch up on what you have to do this week.

I still have my cough, although I can tell it's getting better. Coughing is how I wake up in the morning, but it doesn't last as long.....maybe 15 minutes. And I don't have as many bouts of coughing throughout the day, but even when I'm not coughing, I am fighting the urge to cough. I haven't had a fever in several days now. I pray when I go to the onc tomorrow I can get my chemo. Even if it weren't for the cough, and for the fact I am worrying about missing my son's graduation, it is depressing knowing I am NOT treating my cancer. The positive me that at first thought, "ok, I'm fighting cancer, step one, step 2, step 3, step 4, and voila, cancer is gone and I'm back to my life", has been replaced with a not so positive me who wonders if I'll ever get better. Maybe it will just be one setback after another. Just like with the right tissue expander failing.... maybe that was the first sign that my treatment/cure is not going to go well.

I try not to dwell on negative thoughts like that, but it's getting harder and harder to be as positive as I started out.

Best of health and positive thoughts to all who are reading (including me!)

The 3rd xray was "suggestive" of pneumonia, so I went to see my PCP. The place I had the xray done was in his office building, and I was able to get in this morning. He says I do have pneumonia, that it was probably bronchitis that turned into pneumonia. So I got a stronger antibiotic and refills on my cough meds. I feel pretty confident that I won't be getting my chemo this coming Monday, which means 4 missed appointments. There is no way I'll be able to attend my son's graduation. Instead of having been done with my chemo treatments for at least 2 weeks, now I will most likely have 2-3 treatments remaining. While on Taxol my WBC has been the lowest on a weekly average, so IF I were to go to the ceremony, I would be in a closed convention center with thousands of people for four hours... No telling what I would pick up there.

I know it's not the end of the world that I can't go. My husband and other son are going to go and someone can face time it, or video it, or something or other.

I sure do feel beaten down by this pneumonia though. EXTREME fatigue, and dizziness and trouble even breathing at all while in the midst of my coughing attacks. It will seem like a piece of cake when I eventually get back to "only" fighting cancer.

Best of health and positive thoughts to all who are reading.

So yesterday I missed my 4th week in a row of Taxol, from this pneumonia I have. My PA called just to check on me, and if I'd been thinking straight I would have asked her a couple of things. Like I was scheduled to have 12 weekly Taxol treatments. I made it through the first 5 treatments before I had to stop due to being sick. I had presumed that when I am better I would just pick up where I left off and have the remaining 7 treatments. But I wonder if it's going to be that I have to have 12 in a row? I'm also wondering that if the answer is I just have the 7 remaining treatments, does this long interruption decrease its efficacy?

I am getting better slowly. Like maybe I cough only about 80% as much as I had been. But today I had one of the worst fits ever, lasting about 3 hours, and was so violent on my whole body that I "threw my back out".

I will be SO grateful when I only have cancer.

Best of health and positive thoughts to all who are reading.

Susie , your weather sounds pretty lousy! Florida gets more than it's fair share of non-relenting heat, severe rain and lightning, but I really think Texas has it worse.

"NP"? I'm not familiar with that one.... or, it's chemo brain getting me again.

I am LOATHE to sound like a broken record, especially a record set on something negative, but it has happened again --- bad to worse. So after 3 1/2 weeks of pneumonia and not being able to see anyone or to go anywhere, and having to delay my Taxol treatments, I finally had a breakthrough day, where I was starting to feel not quite as decrepit and pathetic. One of my BFFs lives just down the street and her birthday was the next day so we decided to walk around the block so I could give her a card also. I warned her I'd need to go slowly. And boy did I! We strolled VERY slowly---me afraid I'd burst into a coughing fit, and my friend just feeling a bit out of shape. So although we only walked slowly for about 45 minutes, I still had to bend over and cough several times.

Here's where the story turns really ugly. After i got home I had a painful 45 minute fit, curled into a ball as I hacked and hacked my lungs up. The coughs were so violent I could feel them in my back. I even said to my husband, "man, it feels like my back is exploding from the inside"! So I spent the rest of the night my couch in a lot of back pain, and fighting the urge to cough. When I woke up Tuesday morning I was completely unable to move my legs--- now numb from the hips down. I had maybe 10%feeling in each leg, but other than that they were dead weight. The rest of that day my husband had to lift me off the couch and I'd hold desperately onto his arm as we'd shuffle toward the bathroom a few feet away. And those few feet were a STRUGGLE!! Along the way my legs would "give way", sometimes at the hip, other times buckling at the knees or ankles. We decide to see how a day of complete rest affected the problem, so I did nothing but the shuffling to the bathroom routine the entire day. And when it was NO BETTER at all on Wednesday we went to the ER at lunchtime. By dinner time they knew they had to switch me to a bigger hospital and be admitted. It's almost Sunday now and I'm still here, and NO
BETTER. I am having every test done that anyone has ever heard of.

Post Edited (exqualls) : 4/1/2017 5:56:30 PM (GMT-6)

I am been following your thread exqualls and was upset to read your last post. You have been through so much...
I am sending you my prayers and well wishes for you to get well and leave this chapter in the rear view mirror.
I hope you are recovering and feeling better.

Hugs and prayers,

E, I just wanted to post that I am thinking about you you & sending many healing thoughts & prayers your way.

We have not heard anything since her last post. I am terribly concerned about her too. I check here several times a day hoping she may post.

Exqualls, I am also one of the many people following your posts in this forum...sending healing thoughts and prayers your way for a speedy recovery. Although your treatment for cancer may be on hold for months, I somehow believe that the treatments you have done so far have eliminated the cancer from your body. In your first post, when you described your history of going to the GYN and doctors, you could have been writing about my medical history as well. After finally going for a mammogram and having totally normal results, I realize how important these tests are, not only for one's physical health, but for their mental health as well. Thank you for your wonderful strength and for sharing all that you're going through...whether you realize it or not, you're helping a lot of people.

I am so glad you are on the mend exqualls! I have Crohn's disease and during one of my many stays in the hospital due to medication side effects or allergies , I had a hospitalist tell me that medication is nothing more than controlled poisoning of the body. I never forgot that.
Please rest and get strong . We will be here praying for you.

Post Edited (pmedic) : 4/15/2017 4:50:43 PM (GMT-6)