Lucky me....

January 13, 2006
Today I had an MRI and a Mugascan. The MRI is a routine checkup of my shoulder. It was supposed to take an hour, but lucky me got an extra 45 minutes in a small little tube that I barely fit in. Sweet! That made me horribly late for my Mugascan, but who cares. The mugascan was a post-test to make sure one of the chemo drugs didn't damage my heart. We won't have results back for awhile, but based on how I feel, I'm definitely fine. I have a PETscan next Friday.

January 22, 2006
My shoulder had been hurting like hell for a week, and whereas it should have been feeling better, it was getting worse. So Mom and I headed down to the ER thinking we'd get the standard protocol of pain pills and go home, but I turned out to be luckier than that...A BROKEN SHOULDER!!! Awesome! I guess that's why it hurt so bad. I still have no idea what I did to it though.

January 25, 2006
Soooo many doctors.... Today I had my normally scheduled checkup with Adkins (the oncologist) and my surprise appointment with McDonald (the surgeon). Adkins said everything was fine. He didn't see any growth on the PET or the MRI, and the mugascan came back great as well. McDonald was glad that I broke my shoulder, because this way he gets to see me more often. He had good news and bad news. The good news is that the fracture is still aligned, so they don't need to do much. The bad news is that it might take a long time to grow back, if it does at all. The slow growth and easy breakabilty are probably due to the radiation, which screws with your bone growth (if cancer can't grow, neither can anything else I guess). Also, when they removed the tumor, they took out a large chunk of my shoulder blade which was there mostly for radiation. Oh well, at least I still have a shoulder to break.

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Oliver Coulson