Last week I wrote a memo called "Last Wellness--Maybe." I added that "maybe" after a moment of thought. I could hear my dear departed father glaring at me over some childhood foible and "clich-ing:" Never say never. They say a dad's hand stays on his son's shoulder the rest of the kid's life. That's the truth.
So I am so happy this new medicine has disconnected me from the weekly chemo treatments. That I seem to have no side effects. That it is just a matter of waiting the business out while living a normal life. Time to end the wellness memo, which I thought I did last Wednesday.
Thursday morning my feet are killing me. Especially where a few corns are located. By Thursday night after a local Historic Society event (I played the Marquis de Lafayette's traveling companion and trust me, my French accent is way too South Georgia), I feel a weird tightness in my chest. By the time get home it is compounded by a severe pain in my left side. By morning the chest pain is very severe. I make an appointment with Dr. Share. He is shocked at my blood pressure (199/90) up some 40 points a week earlier. Whew, if he is shocked, well I am shocked right along with him. Since there had been no side effects during the two weeks I have been taking those $300 apiece pills, he and I both believed we were past all that.
Wrongo. Go to the Internet, search Nexavar and you will see that David Foster has a classic case from the foot soreness to the acid reflux to the sensitive hands, to the high blood pressure.
Now, it is said that one cannot feel pain from two parts of the body at the same time. That may be true, but you can damn sure feel pain from four or five parts of the body at the same time. Truly, since all of this began for the first time I was feeling like a cancer patient. Fortunately, this is temporary. He took me off Nexavar Friday night, did another blood pressure test today (down to 160/90) and all the other aches and pains are slowly diminishing.
The big question is: What to do? We are in the middle of a (don't choke) $6,000 thirty-day cycle of Nexavar pills but neither he nor I want to go through this again, especially me. So is it go to another treatment or adjust the dosage of this medicine or what? Stay tuned.
Dave
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