90. Adjust, Adapt and Pivot!

There has been quite a lot that’s gone on since I last wrote. I’m glad I had my little trip away when I did. Things kicked off again the morning of my 15th Zoladex injection. I was sitting out on the back deck, enjoying the mild weather and doing some sewing. Suddenly I thought I’d been stung by a bee, in the middle of the instep on my right foot. I had a look but couldn’t see anything. Asked Mither and she couldn’t see anything either. I noticed that there were some veins that very quickly turned a dark purple and then I watched a bruise spread out from those veins like oil across water. It still hurt a whole lot and then it swell up like I had half a golf ball stuck on the bottom of my foot. A few hours later I was at my GP and she had a look and a feel. She says it was a bit hot. Again the word unusual comes up. We look at each other and smile in slight exasperation. She writes me an ultrasound referral and says if it’s still bruised and sore and swollen in a couple of days to get it looked at. If it gets super sore and my whole foot and/or leg swells up go to emergency. It’s not the normal presentation for a blood clot but “your body doesn’t know up from down at the moment” she muses. I get the injection out of the way. 

She looks at the blood test results from the rheumatologist. “Your kidney function is a bit down and quite a number of inflammation markers are high. You don’t have TB (great!) and your blood cultures are negative for bacteria infection.  I would like to order the kidney and inflammation tests again to see if there are any changes”. At least it’s not the massive jars. They were the blood culture tests. 

A couple of days later my right foot was still sore, bruised and swollen. I went and got an ultrasound and the guy who calls my name says “You’ve been here often haven’t you”. Never a good sign when medical technicians recognise you as a regular. I lay on my right side and he put a bit of the gel on my instep. He pushed a bit which wasn’t that pleasant and had a look around. Said nothing really showed up apart from some bleeding areas which weren’t serious. I don’t have the official report for that as my GP hasn’t called me to come in so nothing urgent. Guess I’ll get the results at my next Zoladex injection on Sep 17th. 

After the ultrasound I went and had the blood tests again. The clinic is a few doors up so nice and convenient. Only two little vials this time. It was a trainee nurse who stuck the needle in and she was very good. Not even a sting. Or maybe my usual blood test areas are numb and used to being stuck. Either way it was just a small amount. Again, no call up to say there is something urgent from them. 

Mon 26th my rheumatologist brought my case up at the multidisciplinary team meeting. That afternoon she sent an email to the breast nurse and she called me on Tuesday morning to say that the recommendation is a bone biopsy. She had taken the paperwork up to the medical imaging place on Monday afternoon and they said probably Mon 2nd Sep. I would get a phone call to confirm the date, time and any other details. I asked her about the kidney function results and she looked them up and said that different pathology rooms had slightly different parameters. The number I had was still within the realms of ok for my treatment plan and not to worry too much. That made me feel a bit better. I know that abemaciclib and to a lesser extent the letrozole and Zoladex can cause kidney and liver injury. Don’t want to add dialysis to my appointment schedule that’s for sure. 

The clinic called about the bone biopsy. Monday 2nd at 11am. Come in an hour beforehand and fast from midnight. It’ll be local anaesthetic.  Leave about 2 hours minimum for the procedure and recovery and get someone to pick me up as I won’t be allowed to drive. That leads me to think that it’s like my port operation where they gave me fentanyl for twilight sedation. I was going to take the train down to the hospital but a couple of friends from support group “ganged” up on me (I appreciate you guys very much!!) and said I can’t do that and so one of them will be dropping me off and the other will pick me up. Or if I’m really running late then another friend from support group is back up. 

Yesterday I saw my psychologist which was timely with yet another procedure on the near horizon again. I’m not stressed about it. It’s just another scar and needle. I’ll deal with what we pain comes my way. I’ve done some research into bone biopsies and the one I am having I’m  pretty sure it’s not going to be a bone marrow one which goes deeper. It’s certainly not where the take out a big piece of bone as that is under a general. 

I have always been someone who likes to research and get all the information I can. When my first oncologist asked if I wanted all the information about my diagnosis, treatment, life expectancy or limited information I said everything he had. I find I’m the type of person who is less stressed the more I know what might happen from the very bad to the smaller stuff. I also think that I’ve had quite a struggle working through the first couple of weeks after the phone call from my GP and then seeing the breast surgeon. I didn’t really know what to look up and research. I didn’t know about the support group. I didn’t have a breast nurse allocated to me yet. I didn’t know what questions to ask. My independence was ripped from me, mental, emotional, physical and certainly financial.  I’m still dealing with that loss and change in status. Sometimes it’s in the background and I can get on with things and other times it all comes crashing down again. 

Tomorrow is the bone biopsy. I have put an alarm on to eat something before midnight so that I don’t get all faint and icky like I did before & after the last PET scan. My gut doesn’t feel as bad the last couple of weeks which I am guessing it’s due to being off the abemaciclib tablets. However, I do feel like my joint pain, especially my fingers, hands and wrists is worse. Let’s see what happens when (or if depending on results) I go back onto it. I also did feel a bit hungry a couple of mornings ago. So it seems like those meds are definitely making my hunger and food issues harder to work through. 

Even though my hands and fingers have been sore I have done some sewing. I’m 2 weeks behind my weekly K3n stitching challenge (3 weeks behind tomorrow) but I’ll have a day to catch up soon I hope. I’m guessing having pieces of my clavicle cored out tomorrow might put a brief hold on stitching for a few days. I can plan them out anyway. Maybe I’ll get back into my Spoonflower designs again. Using my iPad and pencil should be ok. Adjust, adapt and pivot. Thats life right!?!? (the photo is from the front garden tonight)