Sunshine Tomorrow

Hey, Y'all! It's been awhile!

I really did intend to write something sooner, but I've been in a bit of a funk and didn't want to write a post that was full of whining and complaining. I guess I was waiting for the storm to pass so that I could write a happy, sunshiny (is that even a word??) post. Today I realized that it might take a bit longer than I would like for this storm to pass. Since my blog title sort of indicates that my life isn't always filled with sunshine (whose is??), I thought I would go ahead and share some things that are going on in my life right now.

One morning about a week and a half ago I woke up with a lot of pain in my upper right shoulder and back. I thought maybe I had slept in a weird position, causing the pain and that it would get better after being up for awhile. Unfortunately not only did it not get better that day,  but it got a little worse each day after that. I finally called my PCP to see if I could get in to have her take a look. She was out of the office the first day I called, and on the second day of not getting a call back from her, I decided I should call someone at my Breast Center. By then I was also having problems with numbness in two of the fingers on my right hand as well as a lot of pain in the area where the surgeon removed the eleven lymph nodes.

My Oncologist was out of the office, and I saw his assistant. The PA spoke with my doctor after examining me, and together they decided to have the CT and bone scans that I was scheduled to have the end of September moved up since I was now having these symptoms.

So, today I went in for my scheduled scans. I had to be at the hospital at 8:30 am so that I could have some dye injected into my veins. I then went in for the CT scan which didn't take very long and was only slightly uncomfortable. The bone scan could not be done until 3 hours after the dye was injected, so I had to hang around the hospital for quite awhile.

I have had many different scans done since being diagnosed, but this was my first bone scan-not to be confused with a bone density scan!

I was told that a bone scan can reveal bone problems associated with:

• arthritis
• bone cancers
• cancer that has spread to the bones from other parts of the body
• fractures
• infection involving the bone

The bone scan was a bit more of a challenge for me because I had to lay flat on my back for 25 minutes and it was a bit uncomfortable, especially with the pain in my upper back. Also, WHY is it that when you have to lie flat on your back without moving, everything starts to itch, you have to cough, you get cramps or something to make laying there so much harder?! Anyway, I made it through without too much squirming, and now I just have to wait for the results.

As stressful as the back and hand issues have been, the REAL stressor has been the fact that my insurance has been canceled and I am now paying out of pocket for all medical care, including the scans that were done today. I won't go into all of the gory details because I would be ranting for DAYS, but I will say that it's a shame when the stress of dealing with insurance issues is more stressful than having breast cancer.

It hasn't helped that I haven't been able to get out for any real walking, much less running since this back issue began, because exercise is such a great stress reliever for me, as I'm sure it is for most of us. I'm really hoping to be able to get out tomorrow since my back is feeling so much better and I don't have any doctor's appointments or anything.

Now that I have shared some of the reasons I have been in a bit of a funk and uncommunicative, I will leave you with something that popped up on my FB feed a few minutes ago.......

May we all enjoy some sunshine tomorrow!