What if: You were discharged from the ER with pain meds and instructions as per. my last blog to contact my new oncology people (team) at Levine Cancer Center. At this point you were also told that a biopsy would need to be done immediately to tell the origin of my cancer. ie. exactly what caused my tumor mass and metastasis all over my abdomen. The Oncologist at the Levine Cancer Center responded immediately and the first Oncologist I saw within a few days actually told me she would refer me to a GynOncologist and a Palliative Care Team for follow up. She told me that at this point my biopsy would tell me more of what kind of specialist I would need. She also told me that they may not be able to cure me (because of my widespread metastasis and therefore stage 4 cancer) but that they should be able to get me into some sort of a few years remission. That was scary but at least some hope. I immediately was seen by a GynOncologist who told me that my biopsy (which was scheduled in a few days) would tell us a lot. He said that the new Chemo Therapy Drugs for Gyn Cancer were awesome. I was really glad that my cancer turned out to be Ovarian in origin rather than Colon cancer as I had thought. They put me in twilight sleep for the biopsy which for me meant I was sound asleep but woke up vomiting my head off. Ugh! But that told my next team of people to put me under twilight sleep to add something for nausea.So there was that. And sure enough I was scheduled for a Port Placement (more later on this) under twilight sleep with something for nausea and this went extremely well. The Port thing was not fun but I was told it was practically a must to have for future access for future blood work, Chemo sessions etc. So, I’m glad to have it. In the meantime, I was still having a lot of pain, uncontrolled by taking Dilaudid plus Extra strength Tylenol.So, my Palliative care doctor placed me on Opioid Patches. These are patches applied to the skin and changed every seven days. I had to go from 5 micro grams per hour to 10 to 20 micro grams per hour and this has finally controlled my pain. I’m lucky in that even though I have some spells of nausea, I have not had vomiting (except that one episode as described above). I do have a lot of dizziness and dull feeling in my head that I can’t describe but I hate it. I seem to have what is called “Chemo flu” a few days after each Chemo infusion. This is awful but only last about three days and then I feel pretty good. I still lose my balance easily so use my quad cane or my walker. I am getting Physical Therapy by a wonderful PT guy that makes house calls. I’m lucky on this. I’ve now had three Chemo infusion sessions. Each twenty three days apart. My next big deal coming up is my surgery. So, hope you will follow me from here.
Thanks for listening.
Would love to hear from you.
Dixie Hines, M.D.
