Connie (Mrs. WebSlave)

Connie and her sister Debbie will be leaving early in the morning tomorrow for three weeks in Tijuana at the Oasis Of Hope. Connie is feeling really positive about it. One thing setting her mood right is that her CA125 tumor marker, which as been steadily and rapidly climbing since she went off of chemo (and was just taking Avastin as a maintenance drug) stopped climbing and actually dropped a slight bit. I know it definitely made my heart feel quite a bit lighter when I looked up the lab results.

People can say the think what they want, but Connie has been taking several alternate "drugs" and supplements, and maybe I am just going out on a limb thinking this, but I sure as heck feel they HAVE to be helping for that tumor marker to make the U-turn it did. She won't get another test till she gets back in mid July, so I will be extremely curious to see the results then.

So hope for the best, and well, plan for the best. I am incapable of planning for the worst.

Anyway, back at the ranch......... Damn the world feels like a cold empty place without having Connie nearby.

I hope they're able to help her. 🙏 Are you two able to Skype/Zoom?

Originally Posted by Insomniac101

I hope they're able to help her. 🙏 Are you two able to Skype/Zoom?

Never tried them.

Texting and the occasional voice phone conversation seems to suffice.

Connie seems to be doing well in Tijuana, and her sister is holding up well too.

She has already gone through quite a few therapies including multiple infusions. Fortunately they can use her port for most of them. She had her first hyperthermia treatment yesterday, and that went OK. She said she slept through most of it. Interestingly enough, she said she felt that her breathing was better overnight. But she had trouble sleeping because her mind was racing too much. The doctors there at Oasis suggested that she get a PET scan, as that will show more than a CT scan will. This makes sense since while we were at Moffitt the oncologist there indicated that ovarian cancer can sometimes for 2 dimensional tumors that are more like a coating, or sheet, rather than 3 dimensional tumors. CT scans will not show those 2D tumors, apparently. So she asked me to arrange for her to get one when she gets back home. Meanwhile I talked to one of her oncologist's nurses on Tuesday, who was supposed to get back to me, but never did. A common occurrence with that office, it seems. Connie could get a PET scan done in San Diego, but it seems their PET scanner machine is down. Might be a bit of a headache concerning insurance while she is out of the local area too. But anyway, she worries about such things, but I told her I will take care of it here.

You would think people in the oncology field would understand how important it is to not subject their patients to even more stress.

Meanwhile, I'm kind of going stir crazy being here by myself. Ordinarily I could keep myself busy with yard work, but with temps brushing up against 100 degrees lately, not sure I want to press my heart that hard. I sure as heck don't want to feed the buzzards if I can avoid it.

Glad things are moving along for Connie in Tijuana. What you say about a PET scan makes sense. Also makes sense that the medical business should care more about additional stressors on patients but they do not. Do take care of yourself, no buzzard feeding.

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I had to fire off an email to one of the coordinators at Tallahassee Memorial Cancer Center. That got me a phone call from the coordinator this morning, and then later on from the nurse I had originally talked to. Apparently the oncologist has been mostly out of the office. Well OK, but would it have broken anyone's arm to TELL me that? Anyway, shouldn't be any problem getting the PET scan arranged. I told them anytime late July thru early August would be OK.

Connie seems to be having trouble sleeping at night. She says she is home sick. And I guess being constantly taking some kind of medication, via pills or via her port, or even with new IV lines for some of the treatments is wearing on her too.

Had another issue yesterday I had to deal with. What we arranged was to pay for half of the treatment at Oasis Of Hope with a cashier's check, and then pay the rest of it using a credit card. But for some reason the credit card charge kept getting declined. Connie was upset about this, so I called my credit card company about it. Come to find out, that they had not gotten ANY charge attempts at all. I relayed this info back to the Admissions guy I have been talking to all along with this, and he forwarded copies of my email to various other people there. Seems the girl trying to run the credit card was doing something wrong. So that got squared away.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch. Still hot outside. So watering plants. Saw a squirrel this morning digging in Connie's raised bed tomato garden. I do believe I convinced him to never to that again.

I have seen two baby fence lizards running about. Seems they are hatching out kind of early this year. One of them got himself stuck in the enclosed side porch so I had to scoop him up and relocate him somewhere where he wouldn't get into trouble.

Luckily time seems to be just whizzing on by. Two more weeks and Connie will be on the way back home.

I always have a terrible time sleeping other than my own bed. Except when I was in after open heart surgery. They had me so full of drugs I was lucky to stay awake long enough to eat. Connie will be home before you know it!

Connie sent me some pics she took with her cell phone from the window of her room at the hospital in Tijuana. Unfortunately it only has wide angle capabilities. But this view is due west from the hospital. Maybe she was up on the roof, she really didn't say.

In the background you can see the top of some sort of stadium there. In front of that is what looks like some sort of 7-11 type of store. I zoomed in to show the armed guards posted apparently guarding that store.

Connie and her sister took a little walk off of the grounds of the hospital and said that from what they saw, Tijuana is a dirty, stinky city. And apparently with armed guards needed to be protecting small stores. Not the kind of place to take a vacation planning to take casual walks around at night, me thinks.

Geez! I remember Tijuana from the late '70s. It was dirty then, but we didn't see any armed guards at that time. Definitely a scary place today.
I hope Connie is doing well, and that something in their treatment protocols will help her. The only thing that concerns me, is that they are in Mexico, and safe from the reach of the FDA. Not that the agency doesn’t have their problems, but still . . .

Well, honestly, from what I have been reading lately, the FDA is NOT our friend. They became just another good intended brick used to pave the road to Hell.

What is wrong with this picture? -> https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/15/h...stry-fees.html

Connie called me on the phone today. She is pretty upset. She says her legs and feet are swollen. So much so that she can't see her ankles. She was laying in bed with her legs elevated. Then when a nurse came in to take her vitals, when she sat up for that, her blood pressure was 185.

She started crying on the phone. That just ripped my heart to shreds hearing that.

She has her clonidine with her, that she is supposed to take if her blood pressure goes over 160, so she is headed for lunch and will be taking one then.

I told her to get a doctor in to see her, but she seems reluctant to do that. Not sure why. The nurse couldn't speak much, if any English, so even though she pointed out her leg swelling and obviously saw her high blood pressure, not sure any signals registered. The nurse is supposed to come back later to take Connie's blood pressure after lunch. If Connie understood the gestures.

Over the past year there have been LOTS of humps and valleys with this cancer situation. Honestly, though, they are more of a square wave because I feel like we are thrust up onto a high with the slightest good news, and then at any sign of bad news plummet abruptly into a dark pit. There is NO gradualness about it at all like you would see with a sine wave.

Well, haven't had to tap into my valium supply for a while, but I think I am going to have to fall (jump!) off of that wagon today.