Talked to both my Home Care nurse and my medical oncologist from Victoria today.

I knew Home Care would call because of my emergency visits. She read the x-ray report to me about my ankle. She wasn’t clear on it’s meaning but it did read along the lines of “…in keeping with the bony lesions, a fracture….” She suggested I put the tensor bandage back on.

My MO read it too and confirmed that there is a fracture. Soooo nothing is broken but there is a fracture that the ER doctor missed. Maybe a radiologist hadn’t read it yet and the dr couldn’t see what they can?

He’s also pushing for radiation. Seems the concern is compression of my spine by the tumours, causing paralysis in my lower body.

What to do….

Been having trouble with my ears. Nothing new there, I’ve had problems with them as far back as I can remember. Yesterday I kept getting dizzy so my awesome neighbour took me to emergency. Got there at 4pm. Turns out I have water behind my eardrum. Apparently only time will heal it. We left at about 8:10pm. 4 hours is normal for going to emergency. By 8:30pm we were back in emergency waiting to get my tumour filled ankle x-rayed.

Their sidewalks and roads have rock salt on them. My knee scooter doesn’t like rock salt. Not even 10 feet from the doors, my knee scooter twisted and fell over with me on it. Did you know if you have a mishap outside the building you have to call 911? We didn’t. Luckily I had a couple of compassionate nurses who helped me off the ground and into the building. Luckily it wasn’t busy by then and they fast tracked my x-rays. We were out by 9:30ish.

Nothing is broken but I’m in a world of hurt. Took a pain pill last night and it barely worked.

The palliative dr called. As expected, there’s progression of bone mets. The first thing she said was she can’t imagine how much pain I’m in. I laughed cause I’m really not. Either I tolerate it really well or I’m just used to it. Or I’m just an anomaly of nature. I do get the odd flair up where I need to take a pain pill but it isn’t that often.

So, the tumours in my ribs are growing (4 on the left, 1 on the right). One of them is pushing into the sack around my left lung. The tumours in my lower spine (5 of them) are growing which have the potential of compressing. This could cause paralysis.

No signs of tumours in any of my organs. This is odd because I should have it in my lungs. I’ve been a smoker for 40+ years. My brain is clear too.

She asked how I felt about radiation again. I don’t feel good about it. It’s truly an ordeal getting it both mentally and physically. Ill keep the option in mind but I don’t have weakness or numbness in my legs and arms. I’m not short of breath. I’m managing for now.

Had a CT this morning. As she always does, my neighbour took me. She was even able to get my knee scooter into the trunk rather than having to grab one of those awful wheelchairs from the hospital.

The contrast dye IV went in on the first try. This time they scanned my trunk like usual, but they also scanned my brain.

Scanxiety wasn’t as bad this time except not being able to sleep last night. Now I get to wait for the results. Hopefully I’ll get a phone call early next week. I won’t be able to see the results myself until next Thursday or Friday. And if the above doesn’t happen, I have a phone appointment with my MO on the 28th.

As anxious as I am to get results, the hope meter has changed for me. Instead of hoping for no activity, I now hope for small changes.

The palliative dr was here yesterday. My UTI’s are now considered chronic and she’s left me another sample bottle. Her and the accompanying nurse filled out a MOST(Medical Orders for Scope of Treatment) that will be kept in a folder on my fridge along with being attached to my health records. I’m an M3. No CPR, no intubation, no dialysis. If I have something they can fix, like pneumonia, it’ll get fixed.

She was in disbelief that I hadn’t had my 2nd interview for MAID, nor a phone call from them. She said she was meeting the lead dr today, and would do the interview with me over the phone with the other dr there.

She called me right on time today and we did the interview. All I have to do now is text the MAID dr if/when I want to do it.

I feel calmer now that it’s done. Knowing it’s there if I need it, strangely, gives me a reason to hang in there longer. The anxiety of being in pain without end is gone.

Home care was here today and took my urine sample to the lab. I think this is UTI number 4 in the past year. I’m so over getting them.

No news on the status of my MAID application except that the doc that did the first interview assumed I’d also had the second one. Nope, I haven’t. I’m not surprised this is taking longer than it should. Not much in my life has been “one and done”.

I’ve been having internal conversations with my cancer ever day. Sometimes it’s to tell it to speed up and get this over with, sometimes it’s to slow down. Being housebound doesn’t help. I’m dreading the day I’ll need Home Care visiting me every day. I’m tired. Just tired. I wake up tired. Most days I have a nap. I’m usually ready to go back to sleep by 8pm but stay up till 10pm to keep my pills routine. Tired.