Results of my CT scan and my knees

By the time I got to my oncologist appointment late this afternoon, my blood pressure was way too high.  I can always tell when the nurse is taking it, from the look on her face if it is high or not.  I got the "oh, oh...it's high" look.  And it had been so good for several days. (Darn it).

Waiting in my oncologists patient room, was so hard.  Waiting for her to come in and essentially pronounce my new sentence. I had really felt calm about it all weekend but now I was sitting on the edge of my seat.

I have three larger tumors in my stomach, which I knew about from the last CT.  The largest one went from 4 centimeters to 5 centimeters.  Another one I think went from 3.5 centimeters to 4. The third one shrunk a little, and I can't remember its size.  My liver looked good, and didn't look unhealthy as you might expect.  Everything else looked really good.

She wasn't particularly concerned about the size of the  tumors getting larger.  She said they could be larger for other reasons such as swollen from being a bit inflamed for some reason. So the size might not be an accurate way of viewing my disease.  Mostly it depended on my blood work and how I felt in general.  And generally I feel good.  I felt very relieved to hear this as I had felt like things would be fine.

I however wasn't prepared for the next part. I have been having problems with my knees for several weeks.  Starting with my left knee, it hurt every day.  I finally asked my chiropractor about it when I went in to help me with my neck.  I told him about my knee and had him look at it.  He said my knee cap was out. He put it back in with this little pistol like thing that zaps my knee with a thud.  A few weeks later my right knee started hurting in exactly the same place.  So the chiropractor zapped both knees since the knee caps were both out.  I only seem to be able to go a couple of days before they go out again.  On a crazy hunch, I thought I would ask my oncologist about my knees, which I didn't think she could help me with. When I told her about them, she looked concerned and said my Nexavar can cause skeletal problems in joints, and that it could very much be the cause of my knee caps going out! In fact, she was pretty sure it was the Nexavar.  I couldn't believe it!  She then had me show her what the chiropractor does when he puts them back in, and I mimicked what he did.   She said to ask my chiropractor if he could teach me how to do it on my own at home, as I may be having this happen a lot.  She said the knees could get much worse in time and even affect other joints, so I am to really watch my knees these next three weeks until I see her again.

She did not have me go to four Nexavar yet because she wants to watch my blood pressure for about ten more days to keep it down, then I can call her and we will start on the regular dose of four finally, and hopefully no rash!

Whew! What a relief today to find out those things.  I sure love my doctor!