It’s stressful, the days leading up to the visit with my oncologist.  I always wish for good news, and dread bad news.  Although the “hurry up and wait” aspect of this disease is mentally and emotionally as well as physically draining.  Some days I’m not sure if I’m physically tired or mentally tired, or both. My anxiety, which is there every day, just increases before and on oncology days.  I wanna just curl in a ball in the corner for a few days or run away from it all.  But I can’t do that.  Life still circles around me and won’t pause just because I need it to.

According to what they could see on my CT scan, there doesn’t appear to be any changes to my tumours.  That’s a good thing.  My white blood count is still really low and my markers are still in the 60’s so there isn’t really any change there either.  This is all good news.

I asked him if the effects of radiation wear off over time, is that why my shoulder hurts and lately my hip has been sending me big zingers of pain, not to mention waking me up at night a couple of times.  He didn’t know.  Usually an increase in pain indicates tumour growth but because the CT isn’t showing any, it is possible the radiation is wearing off.  On top of that, those areas are compromised already so they could just be feeling the stress of time.  We talked about what to do about it.  He mentioned me being on the bisphosphonates and was surprised when I said I wasn’t taking that.  And apologetic.  For some reason my chart shows I am.  Bottom line is I’m going to have to just deal like I have been and if the pain gets too bad again, well, I’ll deal.  Right now, I’m not taking any painkillers for it, the pain isn’t chronic, just in spurts.  I know he wasn’t happy about me not taking the bisphosphonates but I’m a really good candidate for “jaw rot” and personally, I’d rather have the pain and chances of fractures thrown in then an infection that can’t be healed.

I see him again in 2 months.

I met with an oral surgeon today about having 4 of my teeth extracted to make way for a partial denture.  He won’t do it because I have had a bisphosphonate even though it was over a year ago.  He says it isn’t worth the chance of getting an infection that won’t heal in my jaw.  I call it “jaw rot” because that’s kinda what can happen as a side effect from the bisphosphonate.  If I can find out if the amount I got was minimal then he’d consider it but he says it has a “half life span” of 20 years or something so it’s still in my system. He did give me another option which is to just get a partial around my remaining teeth and when those fall out on their own, to have them put into the partial.  I do prefer this option.  I really wasn’t comfortable with getting more teeth extracted and was leery of the chance of infection.  I’ll talk to my dentist about it tomorrow when I see him.

They took a pan and it appears that I have an impacted wisdom tooth.  Who knew?