14 December 2006, Oncologist Appointment

Had a follow up appointment with Dr. Atienza yesterday, he's my oncologist. This was basically just a routine appointment to see how I was recovering from the chemo and to check my white blood cell count. We got to the appointment on time, but ended up waiting for an hour and a half to finally get seen by the doctor. Guess they had some walk-ins and just got behind during the day. The nurse took a couple vials of blood and by the time we finally got to see the doctor, we forgot to get the white blood count from him. I'm currently waiting on the place to open up this morning so I can get that information.

The appointment went good. I did most of the talking and Dr. Atienza did most of the listening. I basically reiterated how I was feeling and how I felt right after the treatment. We discussed some of the side effects I've been experiencing and he was concerned about the issues I brought up in regards to my hearing. I've been getting some ringing in the ears for about the last week and certain noises/sounds have changed. It's hard to describe what's going on, but things like the beep on my GPS unit really bothers me when I drive now, and talking on the cell phone with the ear bud is bothersome, and yesterday, when I was at the store, all the background noises really seemed weird.
Anyway, he seemed pretty concerned about those issues and wants me to keep him informed over the next week to see if any other changes in my hearing happen. He suggested I talk to Dr. Debo, the ENT doctor and possibly schedule a hearing test this week. He also said if the ringing in the ears doesn't clear up by the 26th of December, then he was not going to give me the Cisplatin chemo during my next session. He said that one of the side effects associated with taking the Cisplatin is that the nervous system can be affected and ringing in the ears or difficulty hearing high pitched sounds can occur. He says that not giving me the Cisplatin wouldn't be detrimental on my progress as I've already had two doses of the stuff and that during the radiation therapy I would be continuing to get chemo therapy once a week during that process. About the only good thing associated with the radiation therapy is that my chemo dose will go way down. He said that during that portion of the treatment, I would not be getting the same chemo that I'm receiving now and instead of it taking 8 hours to get all the chemo, the lower dose he would be giving me would only take about an hour to get.

So what I got out of all that is that if I'm still having issues with my hearing, I won't get the Cisplatin this time. Not getting this next dose of Cisplatin shouldn't have too much of an effect on me getting rid of the cancer???? Does that make sense?

We also noticed where the PICC line goes into my arm, there is some redness and a little bit of discharge that's appeared in the area. This was very concerning to me because of the fact that this PICC line bandage MUST remain sterile. If it gets infected, I could have serious issues due to the fact my immune system is down and t that the other end of the line goes into the large vein just above my heart.
Since Dr. Hollis, the PEG doctor had placed me on some antibiotics for the same issues I am experiencing with the feeding tube, Dr. Atienza decided to "lets do a wait and see" thing and see if the antibiotics I'm taking might clear it up.
If no results by Monday, I'm to call him.

Marjie and I decided to go ahead and call the home care people and see if they could come out today and change the dressing instead of waiting till Saturday when it's scheduled to be changed. I'll feel better if that happens and for a nurse who works on these things to get a good look at it.

Other than that, Dr. Atienza thinks things are going well with my treatment and says that 95% of the stuff I'm telling him is to be expected. He's seems like a very good doctor to me and has made it known to both of us that if we want to try other types of nausea medicine or mouth sore medicine or diarreaha medicine that there out there and if I don't feel like I'm getting the results with what he's given me that we can try other alternatives. Sounds good to me, seems like things are working ok. I haven't thrown up yet, and the nausea medicine makes me tired, but maybe that's a good thing.

That's about it for now, I need to call his office and get those white blood cell counts, reschedule an appointment with him, call Dr. Debo about the hearing stuff, call the home care people and then mail some packages off.

Take care out there and thanks for all your prayers and well wishes!