Walking the journey- together...alone.: Doctor and God

Monday, January 3, 2011

Doctor and God

We had quite an interesting visit with the doctor today. Do you know the joke about what is the difference between God and doctors? God doesn't think he's a doctor! Well, Dr. H. doesn't fit the mold. He told us today he is an oncologist, not God - he also told us he isn't a barbarian! Well, one thing for sure, he is a great doctor. I had a ton of questions as we have had a bit of a tough month. The biggest challenge has been pain management and some days feeling generally unwell. But, of course, there are many issues when it comes to pain management and this disease, so we weren't sure exactly what problem was causing which issue!

Callum has had increasing pain in his leg/knee over the last month. He has had to have the pain medication increased twice, although we need to keep in mind that we were behind the pain management to start with, so this may just be a logical path and is now close to caught up.

We spent the last 2 weeks in December in Medicine Hat with Vanessa and Stu. These two weeks Callum experienced a great deal of pain, some nausea and a lack of appetite most evenings. He tried so hard to eat at supper time, but last week just had to leave the table as he couldn't even look at the food. He had been taking some short term pain meds for breakthrough pain, but he started taking quite a bit again so he increased the long acting pain med on the weekend and has had a couple of pretty good days. He even made it downstairs to watch the World Junior games! And best of all....he ate supper tonight. That is the first time in quite a few nights. We are crossing our fingers that he will continue to have better days now. It was starting to get worrisome to see him in such pain and just feeling yucky.

Most of our concerns will be addressed one way or another after the CT scan Tuesday, Jan. 4. If there is disease progression we will go back to see him to see what the next step is, and plan accordingly. If there is no disease progression, he will continue with chemo, and if he needs a bit of a break or is having some difficulty tolerating the chemo, Dr. H. will temporarily (I think) discontinue the strong chemo, but keep him on the other 2 kinds to help keep the disease stable.

We don't know what to expect - Callum has lost weight every month for the last 3 months (nearly 15 pounds total) and this lack of appetite concerns many of us. However, we do contribute some weight loss to the severe mouth sores he had in November and possibly due to the pain meds. Dr. H. said today a little weight loss can be good for Callum's leg - less weight on it when he does weight bear (which is not very often now). We should have test results by the end of the week - then we will have a better idea of what is going on.

We had a great Christmas and loved playing with Cade over the holidays. It was a joyful time, really!

Some pictures - hope you enjoy!