Good news! My tumour marker keep dropping. It is down to 7. That’s pretty amazing given where I started out. It’s not the absolute numbers that matter, but the relative numbers that do. If the numbers doubled in a short period, my doctors would be worried. So that I’m down from 45 is a very good sign in the opposite direction. I haven’t said much about the nature of the tumour marker, but it’s very easy to understand. The marker is called thyroglobulin. It is a substance in the blood that is made by thyroid cells. If I don’t have a thyroid, which I no longer do, then the only thing that could be producing thyroglobulin is the metastatic thyroid cancer cells in my lungs.
More news: 18mg doesn’t seem that different from 20mg. Maybe I’m a bit less nauseous. I’m on 3 different meds that make me light headed. For instance: 2 hours and 45 minutes into the Broken Social Scene/Besnard Lakes show on Tuesday night I had to make a decision. I could either keep standing up and risk falling over and fainting from the stuffy air (which was also nauseating), or I could go in back and sit down against the wall. I knew that was a possibility going in, but it has been proven to me as a going concern. I did not want to be the guy that passed out or fell over at the penultimate Broken Social Scene show in Montreal. I also want to still be able to go to a rock show now and then.
ALSO: the Besnard Lakes keyboardist played electric autoharp on one song. Rock and roll!
I’m going to try quitting Gabapentin. My dose is pretty low, so it’s entirely possible I will have no withdrawal side effects, but even if I do, I’m hopeful that this will mean less frequent blurred vision (mild enough not to be a danger but powerful enough to be annoying for reading from time to time) and fewer forgotten nouns. If the pain in my hands comes back (we won’t know for about a week), then I can try Lyrica and see if the side effects are any better.
My hands are holding steady, but I’m starting to have issues with my feet. I’m wearing softer socks, and applying various ointments. Also, foot pain is annoying but not distracting like hand pain. See: the sensory homunculus.
My blood pressure is still not great, so I’m going on another med to see if we can get it down to where it’s supposed to be.
In other news, I made a slap bass playlist for my oncologist, and there are angry people in my cancer group.