Patty's epic adventure

  4/28/24 Today is Sunday.  I went to visit my little brother in Idaho last week and had the flight from Hell getting up there.  I was 6 hours late and had to fly to San Francisco on an alternate route.  Geez.  Coming home, I made my flight with 4 minutes to spare.  I hate American Airlines now.  It usually takes bout 12 hours to get there, and that's already a long day - I don't need issues in route.   All of my test results are back and a lot of them are abnormal. I do have some good news, though. There is no evidence of my old cancer. But, that’s where the good news ends. My rheumatoid factor is high, and my anti-nuclear factor is high.  Both of these factors indicate a systemic auto immune rheumatic disease like cancer and inflammatory arthritis. They also indicate systemic sclerosis. It affects the esophagus,  lower G.I. tract, lungs, heart, and kidneys. There is no cure, but they can treat the symptoms. It will affect my esophagea...

  4/15/24 It's Monday.  A poopy one, at that.  Nothing seems to be going right today.  I should just crawl b back in bed and start over.  First of all, my oncologist is retiring.  i won't see her again.  I told her years ago that she wasn't allowed to retire until I died.  She broke the rule.  She set me up with her partner in the same clinic.  Even Susan's old oncologist is retiring.  Obviously, I need younger doctors.  The day went downhill from there.  I'll spare you all the stupid details, so this will be a short post.  They drew 8 vials of blood this morning for my ctDNA test.  It stands for 'circulating tumor'.  It takes 8 days to get those results, so I'll probably hear something while I'm in Idaho next week.  My white count is down to 2.7 and she doesn't know why.  She wants to check my bone marrow, but I convinced her to wait a little while longer.  I'm planning to 'will' the count b...

  4/13/24 My posts are getting farther and farther apart.  I'm not very newsworthy these days, however, I have another ctDNA blood test in 2 days.  It'll take a few days for the results, but this is the big one, so prayers are welcome. We've been camping and traveling a bit, but I'm now going to physical therapy in the pool.  They're trying to help my back/hips since my spinal stimulator was removed.  They don't want to keep giving me steroid injections and I can't stay on the anti-inflammatories much longer.  They are afraid of kidney damage, so I have to go get that tested soon.  I'll probably do that when I get back.  I'm flying to Boise next Thursday to visit my little brother, Kurt.  His heart is giving him trouble, so I figured a visit from me was all he needed...... A couple weeks ago I had just gotten into the PT pool and they had to take me out with the lift chair.  My chest hurt like a buggar.  It was bad.  I knew it ...