I mentioned that I have been getting headaches daily for a couple of weeks and told him about the incident that happened Saturday. I thought it could be my blood pressure. I've been on my B.P. medication for at least 3 years now. If anything, I can at least contact my family doctor and get checked out, or at least buy a pressure cup for home and monitor it. He wants to do an MRI instead.
Just to make sure
I haven't considered that before (and I'm not even going to speak it out loud).
My blood pressure (taken from ankle vs arm):
Jun 20 159/95
Jun 8 146/85
May 22 138/74
May 7 128/78
Apr 27 140/69
So I mentioned, what about my vision changing and the need for new glasses?
He said that could be it as well .... or possibly stress. Let's do the MRI
Just to make sure
Okay, let's talk about that then.
Once the radiation is done,
how do you know all the cancer is gone?
He said that "we don't". There is no blood test that will confirm it is gone. Just monitoring me on a regular basis and running various "scans" (mammogram, ultrasound, c-scan, mri). It is all based on statistics and patients before me as oncology is researched year after year.
My nodes were tested and clear of cancer. They also got "clear margins" when the lump of cancer was removed. That is all good news. He said I was actually in remission after surgery. Hmmmm, I didn't realize that.
I haven't asked that question before. Now, the question is foremost in my mind ~
Just to make sure
That word caught my attention .... remission. He said that patients have told him what it was like after going into remission and how it felt like a dagger was hanging just over their head waiting for it to fall. And after year one, year two, etc the feeling slowly lessened as remission continued.
That is something cancer patients are always going to have. Fear of it coming back. I know a lady who has had it FIVE times. How do you cope with that?
Constant fear cannot control your life
These headaches? I probably need new glasses or it could be stress .....or it could be side effect from the Herceptin. I could be part of the very few who might have side effects such as:
Well, I will wait on the MRI .... Just to make sure
