Monday, June 30, 2008

ACK...The Scope!

I got SCOPED! AGAIN! ACK!!!!! Dr. Fields was back from his surgery and was seeing all his patients today and since he hadn’t seen me for a few weeks he wanted to look down my nose, of course. When we first got in the room I saw the machine all set up, and Warner tried to convince me that it is always set up ( it always is in Dr. Pou's office, but she hasn't scoped me for a while), but this time it was for real, yo. He printed off pictures for my file and everything. He did say that he won’t have to do it again for a while (he was checking to see if my larynx was swollen and of course it was not). The problem is, he may not want to scope me for a while, but I see Dr. Pou next week and there’s no guarantee she won’t want to scope me! ACK! Anyway he said I was doing well and that I looked good (duh) – but I think he was mostly happy that I had not lost any weight (I haven’t gained any, but I am holding steady)!



I saw Dr. Bienvenu (my chemo doc) today and he seriously cracks me up. I showed him my back acne and asked if it might be related to treatment, and he bust out, “Yeah, it’s probably something we did to you, do you want a prescription for it?” He also wrote me two other prescriptions during my 15 minute appointment. It seems to be the treatment method of choice – throw a prescription at it right now. Oh well, he said I looked really good and my chemo nurses all said I looked really good as well.


I also saw Mell, my speech therapist and that is always a fun time! She’s just so crazy. Apparently she and Dr. Pou talk about me whenever the other one has an appointment with me. Gotta love that!


Here’s a picture of my thinning hair:






I have a stripe down the middle where it hasn’t fallen out yet (it falls out a little bit at a time, but not like the sides, so I’m thinking it will eventually fall out it used to be all full like the middle – the left side is worse). You can also see my back acne / rash (kind of) in the second picture. Oh well. And for anyone who is curious, my brother took a picture of my feeding tube. I keep it taped to my stomach so it isn’t just hanging there. Here ya go (I’m only putting it up because you can’t really see my belly!).




In other more serious news, my friend’s mother is having surgery tomorrow (Tuesday) for throat cancer (on her larynx?) It’s a way more complicated surgery than mine so if you could send up some prayers for her. Unfortunately there are a lot of uncertainties involved with head and neck cancer surgery and unfortunately I know how stressful that can be. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

1st again!!!!!
go me!!!

anyways im glad that all the docs feel that everything's going well

love ya!

beth landreth said...

Steph - just think, you will probably still have WAY more hair than I do!
Love you,
YFA Beth

Anonymous said...

You are doing great girl !!
Love you,
Mrs. Robin, Mr. Troy, Sherri and Sheila

Anonymous said...

SMO!

I didn't want you to think that we had forgotten about you. Shauna and I have been keeping up with your epic journey and I just figured out how to comment on this thing! Our church has been praying for you as have the campers I'm with...Yep, Shane works full-time all summer at a camp with second grade boys. Which reminds me..I have a present for you. Can you e-mail me your home address?
oncewasblind18@yahoo.com

I hope to come home soon and see you when you're up to it. Now that I know how to do this, I'll be posting a bit more frequently. Hang in there!
-shane

Anonymous said...

Stephanie, HUGS FROM ARKANSAS!Cindy

Diane said...

Stephanie,
It's so good to hear that your doctors are happy with the way things are going. That's what we're praying for!!!

Praying for your friend's mother.

Diane