Doctor visits

So here's the short of it,
Today I had two doctor visits. One with my surgeon and one with my medical oncologist.

And here's the long
My surgeon says I'm healing nicely and that she's not at all surprised that I feel like the left side of my chest was run over! I am still very swollen and bruised. The swollen part is why I don't really look much different right now! The stitch ends came out today and the rest will dissolve. As for addressing my continuing discomfort, she did say that many of her patients go to Intimacy, a store in Atlanta that specializes in fitting bras. Apparently many of her clients have told her that the fitting they do has made them much more comfortable. Let me be clear here - she also said that many of her patients had found good fitters in the department stores here in Chattanooga...and she was very clear that she was only passing along information from patients, and not making a medical suggestion. I definitely think it would be worth a visit to the Intimacy store the next time I'm in Atlanta.

Dr. Witherspoon is such a wonderful doctor. I will have to say that I would recommend her to anyone without one ounce of hesitation! Today she spent some time talking to me about my Dad's situation and I so appreciated that time.

My next step was the Medical Oncologist, Dr. Derek Holland. He was very patient and spent a good amount of time talking us through the next set of decisions. It seems I have a couple of choices in my treatment. I definitely meet the criteria to have chemotherapy. I can do the standard treatment that the practice is using now, or I can join a trial called Altto. He says that he is excited about the trial and biased toward it. I have lots of information to read about both possibilities, and in the next day or two, I'll post some description about the options. In the meantime, I will have an echocardiogram, and I will have a port surgically implanted (warning, warning, Will Robinson, the link I just provided contains pretty graphic images of a port in a cancer patient!)

In the meantime, my Dad is still in the ICU at Erlanger. He has limited mobility at this point, he's on a ventilator, and he's developed pneumonia.

I'm actually doing a better job of keeping his blog going than this one.
If you want to check in you can find it here.

As always, your support and prayers are so appreciated.