Friday, November 16, 2012

Overview of today's doctors visit



The doctor says that I am doing very well. Adjustments are being made to my pain medication. Every effort is being made to keep me comfortable. Today the pain med was adjusted and if it is not keeping me comfortable enough then next week they will change the medication altogether. From what I understand there are different families of drugs and your body can get use to one of them, so they switch to a different drug in the same family and often the patient gets better relief. So I may be switching from time to time between two different meds within that same family. If this works for me, than I am okay with this plan.

They do NOT know if the Mitotane is working yet, because I was on a very low dose. So my dose will increase tomorrow. I will take it twice a day and we will see how I am tolerating it after a full week. This will only take me to half of the total dose they want me to be at. I will be taking 2 pills a day and they want me to take 4 pills a day. We are all concerned with my quality of life and as long as that does not change I can work with these doctors.

Because of the way the Mitotane messes with the natural steroids within our bodies, they had put me on a steroid. When I told them about the strange dreams they said they could help with that in 2 ways. First they will reduce how much steroids they have me take and second give me another medication to compensate for the strange dreams. I am very pleased with this action.  I want those dreams STOPPED! They have been too strange to talk about.

I think I have covered the major facts of today’s doctor appointment so let me go on to the fun stuff of life.
I have taken the next tag off of my arrangement of balloons. This tag reads:
“Strength isn’t something you have, it is something GOD helps you to find – usually we have to find it one day at a time” Emma Smith
(For my non LDS friends and family, Emma Smith was the wife of the Prophet Joseph Smith, he translated the Book of Mormon. Some say he founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. However, we claim that he restored the Church under the direction of Jesus Christ, from what Christ had established during his mortal ministry while here on earth.)
It is the 16th  I am grateful for the courage to continue to with this treatment. I am a little concerned about it, But both doctors give me hope in that this could do some good and that they care about my quality of life I will have. That is a major factor to me.

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