Saturday, March 2, 2013

I Revolt...And Win The Battle

Yesterday was the 12th week of chemo! Eight more weeks to go! A small milestone to celebrate. (There are many more surgeries and treatments after chemo, but this is a start). However, it marked another milestone: I won a battle with the doctor!

It all started with the typical weigh-in...this week I gained FOUR MORE POUNDS...IN A WEEK. That's SEVEN pounds in TWO weeks for those of you keeping track, and 12+ pounds in the nine weeks I've been keeping track. That's 10% of my body weight!

Let's just say, I went CRAZY. As in every nurse at the check-in desk started laughing at my ranting. Here's the thing, don't keep weighing me every week (which implies this is an important thing to track) and then not expect me to notice the number on the scale. Four pounds in a week? How do you do that? 

My very loud rant at the scale (which was very humor-oriented, not screaming-scary-crazy person ranting), continued with the nurse assigned to me. Lucky her! Keith, the nurse, and myself did have a GREAT laugh over this. Especially the one question where she has to ask, "Is anything swollen?" Yes, apparently my ass is. She was laughing so hard, she couldn't continue the questionnaire...and decided she probably shouldn't write that down. (Though I did double-dog-dare her to). I blame the steroids for this weight gain and said I was THROUGH with them. The wonderful nurse said I was welcome to bring it up with the doctor (and wished me luck, because she knew this was a mighty impossible battle to win).

When the doctor walked in about 30 minutes later, we laughed that the nurses hadn't warned her to stay away. I semi-calmly voiced my concerns about the steroids and this crazy weight gain. I mentioned that I was going to have to start billing my insurance for new clothes because nothing fit anymore. She listened to my concerns, agreed that the steroids could be the cause, and then she looked at my chart. "Wow! You weren't kidding," she said with wide eyes. No, I wasn't joking. Thank you for recognizing that gaining four pounds in a week is concerning!

Long story short, I win! She agreed to drop the steroids from the pre-med infusion regimen! HALLELUJAH! Now, I will have to wait until Friday to see if it makes any difference. Fingers crossed...

(Also, I am composing a post soon about weight gain, breast cancer, and chemo because it is a dirty little secret that no one talks about. I think that people facing this diagnosis should be prepared for all the things that they will face).

No comments:

Post a Comment