Today is Sunday. I am still here at St. Joseph's Hospital. I have met with over 15 doctors ranging from infectious disease to neurosurgeons. Each doctor has their own opinion, which doesn’t always coincide with what the other doctors think.
As of right now, I have a vertebroplasty scheduled for the fracture in my L3. This will be the third verebroplasty that I have had since being diagnosed. It’s extremely scary knowing that your back is so fragile that it has to have cement put in it three separate times.
The blood clot in my right leg is enormous. Actually, I think that may be an understatement. The clot that originally started back in February has now grown and runs from my groin down to behind my knee. My entire right leg is extremely swollen with fluid and looks like it’s gained a good 10 pounds! The doctors don’t necessarily want to do anything about it right now. They have switched my blood thinner medication again and expect that my leg and clot should improve within the next couple of months.
Well, the doctor did say that she did not want me to exercise with the clot and should stay off of it. Ummm hello???? Anyone that knows me, knows quite well that not being able to exercise or even go for walks would ruin my quality of life! What do they expect me to do? Just sit in bed all day just waiting to get better and hoping that everything will just heal itself?
Ok, let’s review my history. Each time someone has told me that I shouldn’t worry about some sort of suspicious activity going on in my body, he or she has been wrong. Each time I just “wait” to see what happens, I end up wasting valuable time for nothing. One would think that for a terminal disease and prognosis such as mine, one would want to speed up the process a little. I keep thinking that I was just diagnosed in January and we are now at the end of May - four months into being a lung cancer patient. The average person would only have about nine months left.