CT Restults February

Happy Presidents Day!
Maybe I will make this a policy to post on holidays.
I know most of you and I too had to work but somebody gets these BS holidays off. My first big day back, I of course overdid it. I left the house at 10:30 and did not get home until after 6 PM. So I am paying for it tonight. Probably have screwed myself up enough that I won’t even be able to drive myself into work tomorrow. But I do this every time. Not a surprise to anybody.
Anyway, on to the news.

CT Results. Overall a bad score on the CT. Pretty bummed out, we had a bunch of "=" signs in the no further development in the multiple liver tumors, or the pancreas tumor, or the lymph node tumor, or the spinal cord tumor (which I don’t remember being there, but nothing surprises me anymore, very well) , but no "+" signs for any shrinkage of any of the existing tumor sites, and two new "-" signs.
The two new negatives are the big news of the scan.
The first is that I have new growths that have appeared in the spleen. There are two new metastases that are very small right now on the spleen which has been clear up to this point. Now I don’t know how many organs I have in there, but I seem to be running out of ones that DON’T have any tumors at this point. The lungs and the kidneys are all I can think of that either have not been removed, previously operated on, or currently have cancerous growths. This is getting pretty damn ridiculous.
The second negative piece of news is that I have a new blood clot. This one is located on in the vein that the venial port catheter runs through in the chest.
I seem to think this blood clot around the port catheter is a big deal but the Dr. downplayed it. Maybe they just did not want to scare me.
I saw myself in the mirror tonight and the veins on the left side of my chest and my left arm are bright blue. The right side is normal flesh colored. It looks like a drawing in a medical book, where they are giving you an inside look on one half of the body.
This concerns me. If they are that dramatically different looking, then they have to be that different functionally as well. Maybe I can get a good picture of it. Let me go try....
Ok, it came out so-so.


You can see the blue veins on my left but not my right. (Also my intimidating Schwarzenegger like chest physique.)
With it being taken with the flash, it is not nearly as easy to see as with the naked eye.
In person the blue veins are MUCH brighter than what you see here. It looks like they have been painted on. I think blue veins means they are not getting enough oxygen.
They neglected to tell me exactly where the blood clot is, but for the veins to be used as a road map it has to be right by the heart. Remember that is exactly where this port goes. That scares the hell out of me. I have a blood clot right at the entrance to my heart in a main vein, (because that is where you are supposed to put the port line) if it dislodges from the catheter tube and enters the heart, isn't that VERY bad? Like possibly life threatening bad? They always freak out about blood clots moving and going to the heart and lungs don't they?
Isn't that why blood clots are dangerous in the first place? And this one is right by the heart. That is the starting point and nexus of the blue vein road map drawn on my body. Not very reassuring. After I left the office and recovered from hearing all this bad news, I had great questions about all this, but of course you are too shell shocked and emotionally rocked to think about this stuff scientifically. It is like you need to bring another Dr. with you that is not concerned about your case emotionally to ask the questions to the Oncologist that you would ask if you only could.

So that would be a negative 2 on the score card of possible 6 now. 0 would be no changes, 6 would be all improvements -6 would be all declined. I got a -2.

The continued bad news about the blood clot is that with me taking blood thinner and having blood that takes 3 times the normal rate to clot it should have been impossible for this clot to form. We were taking Warfarin as a pill to do blood thinning. Well since that is obviously not doing the job, did not reduce the clot in the liver, and a new one developed the Dr. decided we needed to change to a completely new type of thinner that works in a different way and is delivered in a VERY different way.
This is called Loveox and has to be done by injection. Oh, no big deal right. Hell I get stuck with needles at least 10 times a month, I don’t even blink anymore. Bad thing is it has to be given in the stomach. Now between the surgical scars down the center and the new drainage port on the right side, that does not leave a lot of real estate to inject this thing. But we will manage.
So we did the first dose there in the exam room (after we had to spend another hour going over to the pharmacy building and getting the new prescription filled for this wonder drug). The nurse did the injection and of course Mr. big shot can take a little needle prick no problem. Well, the needle I did not even feel, but then the goo they shot into me, HOLY SHIT. I hit the friggin roof. This stuff burns like the fires of hell. I thought she had injected me with acid and I would look down and a big gaping hole the size of a tennis ball would be missing from my gut.
This is the second time in as many months that the 3rd floor of the Hollings Cancer Center has been blessed by a hundred decibel swearing and screaming session by the gentlemanly, mild mannered Mr. Hill. I swear they had to be able to hear me all the way out in the waiting rooms. Everybody there knows me, that is for sure.
This pain lasts for about 3 mins of intense action, then it starts to subside, but in total lasts about 10 mins. After I came down off the ceiling I asked ok we need to do this what, once a month, once a week? No, daily. You have got to be kidding me. Now we have to do this at home every night and I get to look forward to this misery indefinitely until the clots do something.
I just really need break from all this.
Its 1:30 AM now, better try to get some sleep.
Love to you all.
Greg