We were in a room today where everyone had a very personal connection with cancer disease in one way or another – astounding. Not that it should come as a shock to me, given my own recent family history with the disease, but this was such a hoppin’ scene!
So we met yet another doctor, who agrees with all of the previous doctors but – guess what? – more tests! So the last 3 days of this week will be taken up with various tests where they take bits and pieces out of Gerry and look at it under a microscope.
He doesn’t have a heck of a lot of anything to give up – he’s lost about 40 pounds in the past 2 months and is shorter, too. My incredible shrinking husband.
This afternoon he said, “I don’t want to fight off a spider with a needle!”
Gerry’s been worried about his pain meds again, this time because he read that they can be bad on kidney function. Thankfully the doc today told him to please go back to the pain pills (and even offered Oxi – which he turned down – he’s afraid of being so dopey he falls and breaks something else!)
We thought we’d have to be away when the kids got home, so we arranged for a friend to be here (thanks Catherine!) but we ended up with an earlier appointment so we stopped by Sears and registered our cars (finally!) and then spent the afternoon setting up a database of Gerry’s medical stuff / visits / procedures so far. There will be more, and we may as well get started organizing ourselves now.
We have a big blue accordion type plastic folder where we’re sorting out the piles of paperwork we’ve already acquired – easily portable – and we’re finding that this is helping both of us wrap our minds around this.
The doc would like to start Gerry on Zometa as soon as possible to reduce the calcium in his blood (which is leading to tiredness and confusion) and – as it’s a treatment for MM, he feels that he’d have Gerry on it eventually so he rather do it sooner than later.
For me this means a lot of late-night knitting – catching up on what I haven’t been able to do while driving around from testing facility to testing facililty. Thankfully, knitting is the PERFECT thing to do while waiting for Gerry to get poked (we each have our needle therapy) so I can “go to work” while being the supportive spouse I’d like to be.
Tomorrow off for a bone marrow biopsy. This will help seal the official diagnosis of MM, which all of the docs so far seem to feel is prime suspect. Where is Helen Mirren when you need her? According to Gerry’s osteoporosis report (which we read together today) he’s “grossly normal” – which we’re still trying to figure out. We’re astounded that ANYONE in our family is considered normal.