A week of testing

As I write this, I just received a "lumbar puncture", more commonly known as a "spinal tap".  Dr. Scott wants to know the secrets that may reside in my spinal fluids and I am a bit curious myself.

My recent hospital stay included the instructions to call Dr. Santos' office and schedule an EEG.  I decided to wait until after my next chemo treatment on Monday which would be followed by an early Tuesday morning appointment with Dr. Scott.  I thought he might be able to explain why I needed this.

I reported to the chemo lounge at 8:00 am on Monday and Linda hooked up to my port while I told her the events of the previous weekend.  She took some blood samples and decided to call Dr. Scott at home to see if the Friday TIA incident might have any bearing on chemo treatments.  He instructed her to put off chemo one day until he had studied the possible relationship between the drugs and the effect.  More than likely, he would suspend one of the chemicals that had some minor associations with constraining arteries and possible stroke risk.

So on Tuesday morning, Mary came with me to my appointment and Dr. Scott examined me and we listened to his various reasonings.  The bottom line was that he wanted more tests so he could determine whether the chemo was related to what they were calling a "TIA".  SO he cancelled Tuesday's chemo treatment completely, put me on the baby aspirin regimen, scheduled a EKG for Wednesday morning, and urged me to schedule the EEG with Dr. Santos ASAP.

I called Santos' secretary a bit later and left her a message.  Meanwhile, Scott's secretary called to tell me she had scheduled the lumbar puncture for Friday.  Santos' secretary called back and said she got me scheduled for an EEG next week due to a cancellation but unfortunately, Dr. Santos would be away at a conference and would not be able to read it until the following week.  In the evening, I got a call at home from Dr. Scott, himself, apologizing for not telling me about the spinal tap in person.  I told him of the drawn out EEG scenario and he seemed quite miffed as he thought he had communicated urgency to Dr. Santos. "Did you tell him that I have suspended chemotherapy for this?"  He told me he would call and see if he could move up that appointment.

Wednesday at 3:00pm I was at work when I noticed a voice message from Dr. Santos' office saying they would squeeze me in this afternoon.  I quickly called back and they said to come right now.  I arranged my sub and hustled over to his office which was only about 3 blocks away.  Turns out, this was not the EEG but rather an eye examination.  Dr. Santos is a Neuro-Opthamologist. His examine was looking into my eyes for any irregularities, possibly damage from iritis or other maladies that reveal themselves on the retina. I learned nothing new from this visit except that Dr. Santos does not think the episodes on Friday were related to stroke or TIA. He thinks they are more consistent with migraine but without the pain.  I guess there must be a first time for everything. He would recommend getting back on chemo based on what he observed; or didn't observe.

Thursday morning was my scheduled esophageal stretch endoscopy with Dr. Lown (who discovered my esophageal cancer two years ago.)  My brother-in-law Bruce did the transportation and waiting duties. I knew the routine. It wasn't until later Thursday night that I realized the "amnesia" aspects of the versed had been in effect and I had no idea the results of the procedure.  Was there paperwork? A call to Bruce cleared that up. The paperwork was in my coat pocket and the procedure had gone fine... All looked good on there.

So here it is on Friday. I took the day off from work for this spinal tap. They got me into a room quickly and I had a really great nurse (Sherri). They were running a half hour behind in radiology because some guy took a half a day off.  Brad, the Physicians Assistant and I recognized each other immediately from past procedures in his department; the grooviest department in the hospital.  A couple of people had asked if I had had this procedure before and I had replied that I did not think so. But in that room as Brad described it, it came back to me. I could even remember what it felt like. Unpleasant. A special, live, directional X-Ray showed Brad exactly where to insert the needle to draw 4 vials of fluid. The skin poke was not so bad but the final penetration into the canal hurt quite a bit and Brad added some extra lidocaine.  The fluid will help Dr. Scott rule out the elusive lymphoblastic lymphoma as the cause of my little numbing spell.

After it was done, they wheeled me into this area where you wait for transport. I had to lie flat on my back and had nothing to read so all I could do was listen to the woman in the next stall over who was snore-moaning: a loud rumble snore followed by a painful moan. I'm glad she was asleep so she did not have to experience whatever pain it was causing the moan. But being six feet away separated by a curtain, I experienced it big time. I could observe 3 transport guys sitting there, joking talking about stuff, making phone calls and generally looking like they had nothing to do.  After about 10 to 15 minutes I finally broke and pressed the red panic button, turning on my light. One of the guys turned around and acknowledged me.  I asked him how long I needed to wait here?  He said, "Oh, is your LP procedure done?"
"Yes it is", I concurred.
So he wheeled me back to the room.

A spinal tap requires that you lie still for two hours while your body plugs up the hole sufficiently.  I got to order late lunch and catch up on this blog post.  Abby is coming to pick me up and take me home.

Five days in a row of doctors and tests following last weekends hospitalization and Monday will be another test; an EEG.  I hope they figure out what is going on so I can go back to killing cancer.