Nausea reprieve

My early morning PET Scan on Friday was the exciting culmination of a week defined by sitting in a chair wishing food tasted better.  A hospital lab visit was getting out of the house after all and feeling like some forward momentum.  Abby agreed to sacrifice her last Friday "sleeping-in" opportunity before the GVSU semester to drive me to St. Mary's at 6:45a.m.  Normally I would not need a driver for a PET scan but they had me taking some Benedryl to counteract allergies to the dye that they use.  There is also an hour and a half of absorbing a radioactive isotope through an I.V. that would give us some father/daughter bonding time and a chance to watch a DVD together.

There was a minor SNAFU at check-in as I was indeed on the schedule but there appeared not to be an authorization code available from the insurance company.  Probably nothing, but I had to first agree to be responsible for the whole cost if for some reason Priority Health didn't want to pay.  This is the third such "Auth code" issue that has come up lately.  It was seeming for a while like my insurance experience was going to be all good but now I'm feeling a little passive aggression coming from them.  I recently got the bill for my whole esophagectomy surgery and resulting hospital stay (5 figures) saying that coverage was denied due to lack of a prior authorization code from my doctor.  Since it is supposed to be 100% covered, I'm choosing not to worry about that one.  And then I got a bill for $720 for a denied injection I received during the surgery to fix my paralyzed vocal cord.  Apparently my doctor has a choice of 3 or 4 cellulose stiffening agents he could have used and he picked one (the one he said that he always uses) that Priority Health says is not on their list.  It is going to take appeals and red tape and I may end up just paying for that one.  It seems strange to me that I can go into an approved operation with an approved doctor at an approved hospital and then someone scrutinizes the bill afterward to see what they can avoid paying.  Isn't the point of an HMO that this stuff is worked out ahead of time?

Abby and I watched "Easy A" (a movie with a smart script that is better than it looks judging from previews) and ordered breakfast from the menu for after the scan.  All went well and I had no allergic reaction this time, thanks to the pre-meds.  So next week, Dr. Scott will have a nice 3D picture from "eye-to thigh" of my body in its current state of cancer metastases. That appointment is on Friday and we hope to see no hot spots lit up on the scan.  The only known spot is currently on my liver and possibly some lymphoma residuals in my mediastinum region.

I'm bracing myself for the reality that whether the cancer has grown or shrunk, it probably means more chemotherapy.  My nurses keep mentioning that I am carrying a heavy load in the nausea side-effect category of the drugs I'm on.  True, that.  I was grateful to be taken off the Xeloda earlier in the week and it has taken until this morning to feel like the nausea phase has cleared my system.  I woke up with an appetite and enjoyed a pretty good-sized smoothie for breakfast and when Chicago friends Dan and Mary and their son Josh dropped in late morning, I discovered I was ready for some lunch and I finally got to enjoy that baba ganoush I had made earlier in the week along with a fresh cucumber that the neighbors delivered from their garden.  I even had some bagel with cream cheese.  Food has not tasted this good in a long while!

The new physical effect I am experiencing is body weakness.  Maybe it is an iron deficiency or perhaps too much sedentary behavior.  But I now have to stand up more carefully to avoid become lightheaded and I feel like my muscles don't have the strength to do much more than fundamental tasks.  I feel pretty good sitting in a chair but moving around is now something that I pay attention to.  With the passing of the nausea also comes the passing of the grumpy, anti-social stage so I am happy to be feeling like interacting with people again.

I'm also looking forward to the esophageal dilation I will be getting on Tuesday.  I've lost count of how many I've had (7 or 8?) but they always leave me with a larger swallow capacity. It has been 6 weeks since my last one.  That, coupled with the extended chemo vacation and a presumed end to the chronic "thrush" outbreak may mean some expanded food experiences; something I crave more than anything else.