NO PROGRESSION!

NO PROGRESSION

The good news yesterday was that my CT scan showed there has been no progression of my lung cancer and the amount of cancer is “very little” according to my doctor. By the way, I don’t know that I have talked much about my doctor in these posts, but in my mind he ranks right up there with the great people I have met during my life. His skill, knowledge and practical approach to medicine are quite impressive. I have included a link to his blog, Onctalk, on my blog and recommend that if you haven’t already done so you should give it a look.

Now don’t get the idea that we have fashioned a “cure”. I still have the cancer, it could start growing again at any time, or it could metastasize to some other part of my body. We are going to maintain an every six weeks monitoring schedule to check its progress. For now, I’m going to enjoy the relief from treatment. Hopefully I will get my heart situation (see previous post "So We Will Wait Awhile) straightened out in the next couple of weeks and when that happens I will be able to get back to exercising and regaining my strength.

MASK REPORT

Several of you have asked about the mask. I have tried it now for the last two nights. The first night I did fall asleep with it and woke up after an hour with a bit of a cough. A cough doesn’t work too well with the mask so I abandoned it and slept pretty well the rest of the night except I think apprehension related to the upcoming CT scan the next day hampered my sleep. Last night, relieved by the scan report, I slept for two hours with the mask. I’m not quite sure why I wanted to get rid of it at that point but I did and I slept really great the rest of the night. So we will keep trying.

Facing the Mask or Masking the Face?

My visit to the doctor yesterday was nothing if not interesting. The doc was insistent that I try the mask with forced air again, so I finally gave in and agreed to give it a try. I will be getting a mask and a machine here shortly. I will give it a try but have a hard time believing that I will find it tolerable. The doctor said that I have both central and obstructive apnea which classifies as mixed apnea. She said I had one of the worst cases she has ever seen. Of course, I always try to do everything to its fullest. What’s the point of coming in second? Central apnea occurs when the brain fails to recognize the lack of oxygen; obstructive occurs because the breathing passages close. My heart difficulties are probably causing the central apnea. So, we’ll see if I can tolerate the mask and if I can whether it will do any good. Meanwhile, I got a full, restful nine hours of sleep last night.

Rock-a-bye Baby

I did the sleep study last night and I would put it in the category of something you don’t want to do unless you really have to. The facility is very nice and I was in a private room with a nice bed and reasonable ambiance. I got there at 7:30 pm and about 8:30 they started wiring me up. I pretty much ended up with wires all over my body. They didn’t hurt or anything but you sure are aware that they are there. Around 10 they came in and I went to bed at which point they connected all of the wires to the computer. I then was supposed to go to sleep. With all of the wires and the unfamiliar surroundings it took me quite a while to get to sleep, but I did sleep some according to the technician. The first part of the test was diagnostic in nature. Sometime during the night the technician woke me up and at that point we were supposed to try this mask that blows air. The idea is that the pressure of the incoming air will keep the air passages open and thus allow you to sleep better. Well I first tried a mask that just forced air into the nose. That didn’t work at all. I couldn’t breathe through my mouth and I felt as if I was going to suffocate. Since I already have some shortness of breath the mask and the incoming air just exacerbated that problem. We then tried a mask that covered the nose and mouth so that I could breathe either through my nose or mouth. That was some better but I still had these breathless and suffocating feelings. I stuck it out as long as I could, thinking I might get used to it, but I finally had to call the technician and abandon that as well. So, I spent the rest of the night in diagnostic mode and slept pretty well. I have an appointment with the doctor on Wednesday and will find out then what the tests revealed. However, if wearing the mask is the solution to sleep apnea then I’m pretty sure I won’t be using that remedy

SO WE WILL WAIT AWHILE

It appears that we are going to have a week or two lull in activity. The principal objective at the moment is to get my heart rate slowed down and to get my blood thin enough so that it will be safe to do a zap to get the irregular heart beat back to normal. I am taking medicine for both of those things, but it will probably be three weeks before any further action can be taken. On the cancer front I am scheduled for a CT scan on March 25. We won't know anything new until then. I will be having a sleep study this Saturday night so I will let you know about that. It sounds like an interesting procedure. I am still having some problems sleeping so if this makes it possible for me to have a good, full night's sleep I will be most appreciative.

UPDATE

Nothing much happened on Friday. I was scheduled to go in to get zapped to get the heart rate under control. However, they did a transesophogeal echo cardiogram first and decided that there were indications in my blood that a zap could cause a stroke so the zap was cancelled. So now I am doubling up on amiodarone and have a new medicine, metoprolol, that I am taking in addition to amiodarone. So far no evidence of progress, but it’s early. My heart beat was still 115 this morning. The swelling in my legs and feet is getting under control. I am taking a diuretic twice a day for that and it is working. I am up and around and feeling pretty good. Yesterday I spent most of the day at Pacific Raceways watching grandson Conor race his CRX. The car ran beautifully and Conor’s instructor (this was a school) said he drove well. He was going fast I can assure you of that. Being that active yesterday has caused some fatigue today, but a good nap helped with that

NEW ADVENTURES

Today was an eventful day. The original plan was to visit a sleep doctor since I have been having difficulty sleeping. I believe I mentioned in a previous post that I will fall asleep and then wake up almost immediately gasping for breath. So, I did visit the sleep doctor who is also a pulmonologist. In fact she was the first doctor I saw back last July and was the one who diagnosed my cancer. Last Wednesday or Thursday I started developing swelling in my feet and legs. That condition got progressively worse so the sleep issue became secondary and the swelling became the urgent condition we discussed most this morning. The doctor scheduled an abdominal and leg scan to determine if blood clots were the cause of the swelling.That took place later in the afternoon and I am happy to report that there are no blood clots. In the meantime the sleep doctor prescribed a sleep study that will take place on March 15. She believes I have sleep apnea, a condition that has gotten progressively worse in the last several months. She says that apnea could be the cause of my rapid heart beat.

I also had an appointment today with my cardiologist. The medicine he prescribed a week and one half ago, amiodarone, has not been working as rapidly as I, or he, would like so he now has me scheduled to go in this Friday to get zapped. He thinks that if we can get the heart rate slowed down and stabilized the medicine can keep it under control. He also prescribed some medicine to take care of the swollen legs and feet. He is not quite sure what is causing that condition but he said he hoped it was heart failure. Colleen and I both blinked on that one, but he explained that he can treat heart failure and that could be caused by the prolonged presence of the high heart rate. He also put on another 48-hour heart monitor to see just how high my heart rate is at present. Last time it averaged 143 over 48 hours. This time we expect it will be somewhere between 110 and 120.

Meanwhile my oncologist was in the loop on all of this throughout the day and he is going to move up my next CT scan. It was scheduled for March 25 but we’ll be doing it sooner than that, as the cancer could be involved in all of these things, particularly the fluid buildup in the legs. We also had blood test done today for a variety of things, but those results had not come back by the end of the day so we don’t know if they revealed anything that might relate to everything that is going on.