So after getting sick a few weeks ago I had a cough that just wouldn't go away. 2 weeks of that had me calling my Oncologist. I didn't THINK it would amount to anything, but 2 weeks is one too many for me, and before I was diagnosed my main symptom was a persistent cough. Besides the cough, the last time I exercised (a week ago monday) I was only good for about 30 minutes and I had some chest pain at the radiation site when breathing heavily. It's about the weakest I've felt working out and a marked decline from my current levels of performance.
She ordered the x-ray which I was able to get Friday morning, before a scheduled follow up with the radiation oncologist. My regular doc thought it could be some scaring from the rads. When I saw the radiation doc I mentioned the symptoms and exercise difficulty, but didn't share this info. I don't want to get in between them, and at that point there were no results. He listened but gave no indication he thought it was radiation related and advised me to have my med. onc. follow me on it.
Friday I get a call from my med onc. She said preliminary results showed nothing related to the cancer. Today I got a second call from her nurse practicioner. Again, nothing related to the cancer, but there were apparenly some indications of scaring from the radiation treatment. Standard treatment for this is steroids to control the inflamation, so now I've got another follow up with the rad. onc. to get an Rx for the steroids.
Not sure how I feel about the rad. onc. throwing me back over the fence to medical in light of the x-ray results. They weren't in when I saw him, but he DID shoot my lungs and I mentioned the pain I had durring the exercise to him as well. I thought that might be a meaningfull symptom and it looks like that was the case. Even diminished, it seems I still know my body well enough to distinguish "somethings wrong" from "out of shape."
Even before the results I had resigned myself to stop pushing myself on getting my aerobic fitness back in short order. Even though my schedule didn't seem that ambitious, the way I felt after Monday made me re-evaluate even that much work. I felt I was pushing my body too hard right now for what it had been through. The first thing I've got to do is heal. Heal from the cancer treatment, heal from the cold I got, and, of course, heal from this lung inflamation. Spring will be here within a couple months (probably about the same time this snow finally melts) and I won't have to manufacture indoor bicycle rides. I'll be able to do my thing outside, at my pace. Instead of trying to meet a timetable of NOW I think the best thing is to just ride to enjoy it and let the fitness come as it may. Probably best to put the HR monitor away for a while.
Remember the old Florida commercial line, "I need it bad!" For the first time in my life I think I'm there. A week in the sun would do me just right right now.
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wow, this sounds familiar... i had a cough from thanksgiving til about two weeks ago - i was on 3 weeks of antibiotics, and this morning the cough came back!!! plus, i've been taking dance classes & working with a trainer and it isn't particularly going so well... i didn't realize how out of shape i'd gotten!
ReplyDeletei hope you're doing well other than the cough...
Aw..I'm sorry to read this, Chris. As you know, I've been on the Prednisone for a while because of lung inflammation/scarring. It's sucks, because we want to be over this stuff already, but it is treatable. It is good that you are treating it. I guess, despite the inflammation, I am still glad I did the rads, because it seemed like the right thing to do. I hope I did the right thing. But we just do the best we can. Sounds like vacation time to me! Good luck. Take care.
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