Routine oncology visit & other stresses

Let me just give you a little background on my afternoon to explain why my blood pressure was so high for this visit!  I was trying to scramble out of school early.  In the middle of finishing up a bunch of school things, I noticed 2 messages on my phone:  one from our realtor and one from the Genesee County Police Department.  I called the police back first.  He informed me that our house (that is ALMOST sold) was reported by the realtor for having major water damage.  I immediately called the realtor back.  Meanwhile, I SHOULD have been putting my lidocaine cream on my port......but I figured I would have the blood draw by my arm and I could numb my port by the time I needed to have it flushed.  All of this while racing toward my appointment. I got to the blood lab and they told me that oncology was going to do my blood draw right NOW and to head upstairs.  OMG, I still hadn’t put my cream on!!

So, yes, I had a pretty high blood pressure.  The nurse asked why.  I recited all of the above.  I had asked my dad to run over to the house and check out the damage.   He said there was a LOT of water damage to the hardwood floors, walls, and carpets, along with flooding in the basement.  There were 3 obvious breaks in the heating pipes.  He also noticed that the oil tank was on empty.  I had my blood drawn (OUCH, nope the lidocaine hadn’t had time to work!) and my port flushed while I was frantically calling the oil company.  I confirmed that the house was still on automatic fill up.  So, this is a direct result of the oil company not keeping the tank filled!  OMG.  We are looking at well over 10k in damage.  Most likely, much more.

Back to the cancer story.  All of my numbers look great (except my blood pressure!).  This was my last port flush because if all goes according to plan, the port will come out during my surgery in February.  I cannot wait!

So, apparently, there is another fun side effect of Tamoxifen.  That is weight gain.  I am up 5 lbs in the last 6 weeks.  The doctor said that people usually gain 5 lbs on Tamoxifen because it puts you into menopause.  Menopause is when your hormones are all confused and seek lots and lots of Christmas cookies and cheese.  Great.  She said that I can blame this 5 lbs on the drug, but anything more will be  directly from eating too much crap!  She doesn’t sugar-coat things.  And it’s a good thing, or I probably would have eaten that too. :/

Next appointment is a pre-op with my plastic surgeon on Wednesday.