Trouble recovering

Well...since returning home Saturday night, I have had difficulty with various tiresome health issues. Of course, this started with the entire trip home from Rome which had been a little difficult for me. Thankfully, PJ (from next door and the son of our limo service) was home to help carry our luggage into the family room. I'm not sure that I could have hauled all the bags in from the garage. I went to bed almost immediately.

On Sunday, I spent almost the entire day in bed - until 6:30. I was up about every hour with diarrhea - very draining. And, my congestion and cough increased throughout the day. No appetite seems to be the norm for now. I am down 13 lbs since June 10 and 23 since early May. I am down about 35 lbs since late Feb. This is not good - even though the average person might look at me and assume that I need to lose the weight.

Anyway, I was up for a few hours and back to bed early since I had a 7:45 appt with Dr Forkin for my physical - who the heck agreed to that time!! I am not in too bad a shape on other things besides my obvious big issues. My creatinine level is high - indicated a small problem with kidney function. 1.7 versus desired range of 0.9 to 1.6. My hemoglobin is quite low - 9.7 versus normal range of 13.3 to 17.0. Hematocrit measures 32.6 v 42.0 to 52.0. These indicate that I am anemic.

After my physical, I hauled the oxygen concentrator and all its batteries/accessories to the UPS store. I had to take it in pieces since total weight was about 42+ lbs and I couldn't have handled that pre-boxed. Happily, a woman from the UPS store helped me carry things in. She gave me the signed forms that I needed and handled all the repacking for me. Even with the helped, this chore really wore me out.

After some schedule confusion, it was determined that I was scheduled for a scan on Tuesday AM at 8:30. So, I was up and on my way down to IU early. When I checked in, the schedule confusion continued as they told me I had a morning appt with Dr Einhorn. Well...OK. I met him at 10:30ish.

After reviewing the fancy nuclear scan from the morning, he told me he wanted a chest xray. So, we did that next and I headed back to his office. Well...that still didn't do it for him. He next wanted a CT scan and we were able to get that scheduled for today. By this time, it was already 1:30 and I had been at IU for about 6 hours. I headed home.

I go in early tomorrow for a head MRI. Hopefully, there will finally be some info on status of the brain lesions from the radiation treatments. I see Dr Henderson in the morning after the test. Then, I go back to see Dr E once more. I'm hoping that all the extra testing today doesn't indicate that there is an issue. We'll see.