Follow Up With Medical Oncologist

Yesterday I had my follow up with my medical oncologist.  My blood work looked good with the exception of two proteins low in the liver and I'm a bit anemic, both of which he attributed to the radiation.  We will continue to monitor these.  My skin is healing very well but I am experiencing tightness and scar tissue building in the treatment area.  I need to spend more time stretching so I don't loose flexibility and range of motion.  Last Friday I had a random bump form just along my hairline above my right temple.  It may have been from a fall skiing with Brady but I did have a helmet on.  It could be not related to cancer at all but thought it worth bringing up.  My doctor agreed to play it safe and added a head CT to my orders for the chest/abdomen/pelvis CT.  I go for the CT scans tomorrow.  We also discussed a bone scan, but since I'm not experiencing any bone pain he didn't think it was necessary.

My doctor put in the orders for the Xeloda chemo pill which I will resume when I receive my new prescription.  This should buy me another 5-7% reduction in recurrence.  I will be taking a higher dosage (1500mg) 2x/day, 7 day/wk, for 2 weeks on / 1 week off.  The side effects of this are hand/foot rash and diarrhea.  If any of these get severe they will stop my dosage for a period of time to allow my body to heal.  It is chemo again, so I'll have to be very careful not to be around people that are sick and go to the ER with any fevers.  My doctor called this the "gravy" portion of my treatment plan, I'd probably call it something else haha.

At this point in my recovery I find in general it takes me longer to recover from things.  This weekend I was able to ski like normal, but I needed extra sleep for the next couple of days just to get my energy back.  Normally one good nights sleep and I would have been good.  The doctor thought this was residual effects of chemo and the cumulative effect of all my body has been through.  I will have to eat very well and get plenty of rest to try to keep my energy up.  And who doesn't need that anyway!