Soon we will be returning to Charleston for the every-three-month check up to monitor the status of the cancer tumors.
The CT scans of my thyroid, and chest/abdomen/pelvis will be checked against those taken on the previous visit. Any changes in the size of the tumors will be noted in the radiologists’ reports and passed along to our oncologist for his meeting with us.
We are concerned about the amount of radiation I absorb and accumulate from these frequent scans over the long term of the study. This is one of the risks we accepted in order to participate in the study of the experimental chemotherapy Zactima.
The check up concludes with a blood analysis of seven different cartridges of blood, an electrocardiogram and consultation with the oncologist. He reviews and explains the results of the imaging and blood work, notes any changes I report for symptoms and side effects, and conducts a physical exam. He also patiently answers the many questions we have accumulated during the previous three months.
One of my responsibilities as a participant is to maintain a log for the twelve weeks between visits. These track the frequency of bowel movements, prescription pain medication taken, measurements of pain – where and how much – and “Quality of Life.” For the latter, I rank, on a five-point scale from “Not at All” to “Very Much”, such things as the severity of symptoms and side effects, how close I feel to friends and family, the emotions I experience, such as worry and anxiety, and how the illness affects work, sleep and fun.
In addition to the medical necessities, we make sure we include the fun part by exploring the many fine museums and traditional Low Country cuisine offered in this gracious and elegant city.
Stay well!
Copyright 2009
Lynn Chapman-Adler
www.lindalater.blogspot.com
Posted: September 19, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Mood and Food
Nausea is thoroughly disabling, sometimes stealthy, other times striking with meteoric impact. It sours a cheerful mood, disarms initiative, clouds reason and skews perception. Positive thoughts languish while negativisms multiply.
This kind of nausea persists without the satisfaction of a good, stomach-clearing vomit, signaling the beginning of relief. I spend hours on edge, expecting any moment to fling the contents of my stomach into a basin. Then the nausea slinks off, snatching away the satisfaction of bringing it to fruition, then stomping it out.
During this illness, I have sought explanations for nausea in hopes of concocting a remedy. I looked first at my food intake: patterns or ingredients provoking a gastric rebellion against a culinary insult, such as too many jalapenos. I log the fluctuations of nausea in a vain attempt to identify recurring connections with various foods. A year of scribbling has revealed no suspicious relationships.
Nausea fuels mood swings. I have learned to tolerate a low level of constant nausea with minimal flattening of mood. As the nausea level rises, my mood plummets. This illness has tilted me from an awareness of the need for preparedness, formerly an admirable character trait, into a world-class worrier, a burdensome status. For each situation, I seek all possible causes for concern. Since preparedness didn’t help avert cancer, my reasoning goes, perhaps worry can compensate, ex post facto, for this failing and help restore a sense of productive self-management.
Ah, the meanderings of an under-occupied mind! This is the point at which my more tolerant friends would say: “Get a life!” Stay well!
Copyright 2009
Lynn Chapman-Adler
www.lindalater.blogspot.com
Posted: September 10, 2009
This kind of nausea persists without the satisfaction of a good, stomach-clearing vomit, signaling the beginning of relief. I spend hours on edge, expecting any moment to fling the contents of my stomach into a basin. Then the nausea slinks off, snatching away the satisfaction of bringing it to fruition, then stomping it out.
During this illness, I have sought explanations for nausea in hopes of concocting a remedy. I looked first at my food intake: patterns or ingredients provoking a gastric rebellion against a culinary insult, such as too many jalapenos. I log the fluctuations of nausea in a vain attempt to identify recurring connections with various foods. A year of scribbling has revealed no suspicious relationships.
Nausea fuels mood swings. I have learned to tolerate a low level of constant nausea with minimal flattening of mood. As the nausea level rises, my mood plummets. This illness has tilted me from an awareness of the need for preparedness, formerly an admirable character trait, into a world-class worrier, a burdensome status. For each situation, I seek all possible causes for concern. Since preparedness didn’t help avert cancer, my reasoning goes, perhaps worry can compensate, ex post facto, for this failing and help restore a sense of productive self-management.
Ah, the meanderings of an under-occupied mind! This is the point at which my more tolerant friends would say: “Get a life!” Stay well!
Copyright 2009
Lynn Chapman-Adler
www.lindalater.blogspot.com
Posted: September 10, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Grief
During the last year of my mother’s life, I made four trips to Texas thinking I was preparing myself for her departure and wanting to spend as much time as possible with her. Reflections on what my life might be like afterwards collided with a wall of incomprehension, a conscious awareness that I was unable to gain insight into my feelings or prepare a First Aid Kit for Feelings that would help me get through the aftermath of her passing.
The best I could do was to attempt clear communication about what our life together had meant to me and how her being in it made a difference for me. That was my resolve. But the wall of incomprehension remained unbreachable. Throughout her life we had difficulty communicating, and simple desire to do so as the end of her life approached was insufficient to clear the hurdle. My first thought as she stepped across the threshold of awareness was: “Oh! Just one more thing, Mom.”
Grief, to me, has come to mean simply the inability to converse. All conversations with the absent one become one-way communications with imaginary responses. Mostly I grieved for her through my dreams with a sense that we were having another visit, perhaps another chance to communicate that “last thing.” In the four years she has been gone, I have gradually come to know her better by revisiting memories through the prism of common experience that she negotiated before I passed that way. In that sense I feel she is still with me. That is a comfort.
Stay well; your company comforts me.
Copyright 2009
Lynn Chapman-Adler
www.lindalater.blogspot.com
Posted: September 4, 2009
The best I could do was to attempt clear communication about what our life together had meant to me and how her being in it made a difference for me. That was my resolve. But the wall of incomprehension remained unbreachable. Throughout her life we had difficulty communicating, and simple desire to do so as the end of her life approached was insufficient to clear the hurdle. My first thought as she stepped across the threshold of awareness was: “Oh! Just one more thing, Mom.”
Grief, to me, has come to mean simply the inability to converse. All conversations with the absent one become one-way communications with imaginary responses. Mostly I grieved for her through my dreams with a sense that we were having another visit, perhaps another chance to communicate that “last thing.” In the four years she has been gone, I have gradually come to know her better by revisiting memories through the prism of common experience that she negotiated before I passed that way. In that sense I feel she is still with me. That is a comfort.
Stay well; your company comforts me.
Copyright 2009
Lynn Chapman-Adler
www.lindalater.blogspot.com
Posted: September 4, 2009
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