Oncologist appointment

While I'm still not feeling my best, I did wake up feeling much better this morning and so I did go to my oncologist's appointment. I know that even though I wasn't coughing or running a fever, it was a bit risky for me to go to the cancer centre when I'm not feeling my best. Therefore, I took some precautions in an attempt to not infect anyone.

I kept my hands away from my face and everything else. I'm quite a fidgety person and tend to touch my eyes and face a lot as well as walls and anything that looks like it might have a texture so I thought if I did that I might pick up or leave something infectious. Of course there are times when I had to touch things - like when I do the symptom checklist thingy - so the most important thing I did was to use a lot of hand sanitizer. And by "a lot" I mean "obsessively". I used it every time I entered a new area or changed floors and both before and after I touched anything.

I think these measures were enough to prevent infecting others with whatever was affecting me (if it was infectious in the first place). While they have masks available at the cancer centre doors, I chose not to wear one because I wasn't coughing and my eyes and nose were dry enough.


I'm happy to report that my CA 15-3 tumour marker is staying low at 37 and that my bone scan showed no new spots. In fact, one of the spots on my sternum appeared smaller on this scan. How awesome is that? She also said that the biopsy from the endoscopy showed nothing and that the abdominal ultrasound showed nothing out of place.

We also talked about the denosumab treatments. She'd forgotten to tell me that the treatment has to be given every four weeks unlike the pamidronate, which stayed in the bones and so after a while could be given every eight or twelve weeks. I'll be receiving the first six treatments at the hospital (with bloodwork, I think) to make sure that I don't have any reactions to it. After that I'll receive it at home.

I'll continue seeing her every three months as long as my tumour markers stay good and low. I feel like the luckiest person ever because the cancer is still stable - and maybe even shrinking!