Scan Coming

Well, I have a week of work under my belt. 4-5 hours is about my limit. I was there about 6-1/2 hours last Thursday and it about wore me out. But it's good to be working again and getting out of the house for something other than a Doctor Appointment or Treatment.

We did get my scan and follow up Doctor Appointments scheduled. I have a CT Scan and a Swallow Study on Wednesday (Jan 14) morning. This is the first step in determining if last fall's Hell was successful in getting rid of all the cancer. That's the CT Scan, not the Swallow Study. The Swallow Study is just a test to see how my swallowing is doing. I'm expecting to fail that miserably. But the CT Scan's the important one. I was expecting a PET Scan also but, apparently, you can't do a PET Scan until at least 3-4 months after treatment. Because the body is still healing from the treatment a PET Scan will show false positives until it's finished healing. But a clean CT Scan would be a good start.

Unfortunately I then have to wait over a week to get results of the Scan. I have an appointment with Dr. Tsue, the ENT, on Thursday, Jan 22 and with my Oncologist on Friday, Jan 23. So, by then I'll know the results.

Still not eating anything. I've decided -- just today -- that I HAVE to start trying something every day. Just to get my chewing muscles, my swallowing muscles, and all working and, we've just heard recently, that if you stimulate your taste buds with something they'll recover faster also. I don't know how true that is but it's worth a try. Besides, I might stumble onto some things I can eat comfortably.

I drove myself to work today. Friday night I just said -- what the heck -- and I quit taking pain meds. With those out of my system over the weekend I was free to drive. Tim and I have some negotiating to do as he was pretty comfy with "his own" car at his disposal. But we'll work that out.

The lack of pain meds has gone OK. There's certainly been some mouth/tongue/throat discomfort, though not as much as I was expecting. Probably my biggest impact has been my shoulders. Yes, remember that I had shoulder surgery in late August and had Shingles or something that caused problems with my other shoulder in late October. I guess the pain meds had been masking some of that pain but now it's back. I've still got a fair amount of rehab to do on my right shoulder from surgery that I've procrastinated because of both the cancer treatment and some stupid Insurance restrictions on Physical Therapy. But I'll be getting back in to Therapy soon and hopefully we'll get that taken care of.

Caity left to go back to school yesterday. Kinda emotional. Just her second semester so it's not "the norm" to have her gone yet. Plus Caity's going to miss her new niece that she's pretty partial to and I think she's worried about my scans. But I talked to her this morning after her first two classes and I'm sure she'll do great.

Enough for today. I need to rest so I can go watch Tim's soccer game(s) tonight. I've missed way too much of the kids' stuff the last few months.