A Little Pain

All last week, I kept telling the doctors that I feel fabulous and that I would never have known the cancer was back. Feeling really good made it sort of hard to believe all this was happening. How could it be back -- in five places -- when I feel wonderful?

Well, since Sunday, I have been feeling less than fabulous. I started feeling a dull, achy, minor pain in my lower back. Luckily, Advil and Tylenol are enough to handle it. And last night, it also started in my mid-back and lungs, a minor unpleasant ache when I take a deep breath. Again, Advil and Tylenol are working.

I left a message for the oncologist this morning to inform him of this change and see what he suggests. I think I had better get someone to tell me if it is a good idea to be taking both Advil and Tylenol. When Lou was in excruciating pain, our primary care physician told him he could take both ibuprophen and acetaminophen because they don't interact because they work completely differently from each other.

When I was feeling good, I was already pretty anxious to get the Cyber Knife started as soon as possible, but now I am even more motivated. My MRI appointment tonight cannot come fast enough!

Oh, but it turns out that since this is an abdominal MRI, I cannot eat or drink for six hours before the MRI appointment. I found that out when I called over there yesterday to make sure I didn't need to do anything special in preparation for the MRI. Good thing I called! The plan had been to go out to dinner before the MRI. If I had done so, then I wouldn't have had the MRI, which is required for my appointments tomorrow!

One final note: Interesting how a little pain dims the cheerfulness. I started to wonder about the grumpy people I run into in my daily life. Sure they can be a pain in the neck -- but maybe they're actually in pain.