January is only three weeks old and I've already had an Xray, blood work and a CT scan. It all began on New Years day, with a cough.
The cough started in the evening, and at first I thought nothing of it. Chills followed shortly after. I figured it was just a cold, and I'd be going to work the next morning. Then a headache progressed to the point where I finally took an Aspirin in a vain hope of some relief. A runny nose, watery eyes, and coughs that came in spasms soon followed. Sleep was non-existent and I was worn out by the time morning arrived. Determined -or perhaps just stupid -I tried to go to work.
My resolve failed when it became apparent that I couldn't keep my balance while trying to stay upright. New plan: crawl back to bed and continue to be miserable for the rest of the day. Nailed it. My cold would last for days. Only one other time in the 1980's have I ever felt this sick from a 'simple' cold.
Four days after greeting the New Year with a cold I felt better and was ready to return to work. That was Monday, and Wednesday I was scheduled to have my annual CT. Being somewhat cautious, I opted to postpone the Wednesday visit, rationalizing that a few more days would make me less susceptible to any nasty bugs that might lurk in Hospital waiting areas. With my exam rescheduled til the following Monday, I had a relatively boring and seemingly healthy work week.
A CT exam for me is no longer a big deal. In fact it's downright boring, so I thought I'd mix it up a bit: Banana flavoured RediCat. It's yummy delicious, that is if you're into chalk-flavoured banana drinks. I would need to drink two bottle:, one the night before, and one just prior to the exam.
I drink my room-temperatured flavoured chalk (a.k.a. "RediCat") at 10:00PM the night before my exam. I won't have breakfast as you can't eat three hours prior to the procedure. First stop is at the Cancer Centre lab, where my right arm is picked. The important maker here will be the CEA but that result won't be available for weeks. Preliminaries are over, now it's time for the main event.
After registering at the Diagnostic Imaging desk I'm directed to the CT suite. From there I'm instructed to drink my second bottle of RediCat. It tastes as good as the first bottle. My left arm will be used for the IV that will administer contrast material during the exam. I don't look forward to the warm, slightly unpleasant sensation that I've somehow soiled myself. A few minutes of being told to "take a breath and hold....breathe normally" and my exam is complete. I have two new badges to honour my visit: bandages on each arm as reminders of what I went through today. Finished with the Hospital, I can now go back to work, and finally have something to eat!
My cough returns later that night, maybe I picked up something from my recent hospital exam. The next two days the cough gets worse. So much so that my worried manager urges me to get it checked out. At lunch I head over to the clinic, and by the afternoon they're pretty sure I have pneumonia, and order an Xray of my chest. The clinic doctor is concerned, she sees a mass in my chest and wants to do another CT. Since I just had a CT two days prior, I take a pass on getting irradiated yet again. But I make an appointment with my family doctor just in case.
The family doctor has the results of my recent CT, and sure enough, it's pneumonia. He prescribes another series of antibiotics for me. I'll take these ones for ten days, and in a month I'll go back to the clinic for another Xray. All this in January, and I still had an appointment with my oncologist.
Appointments at the Cancer Centre require a self-assessment (ESAS) , and aside from some tiredness, I think I'm doing OK. My weight is checked and I notice that the value is in the 190lb range, back where I was five years ago. I blame cookies.
The meeting with the oncologist told me two things: one the CT showed pneumonia(!) and secondly that the enlarged lymph nodes in my chest had not changed perceptibly in the past year. For now the protocol is to keep doing blood work every three months, with yet another CT in six months. Should there be a significant increase in the size of the lymph nodes, I'll likely need to undergo chemo once more. We'll see what Summer will bring me.
However before the next CT, I'll undergo a follow-up colonoscopy in April. This is my life now: a CT here, a colonoscopy there, and always one day at a time.
