Who do we listen to?

I went to another appointment yesterday with a doctor in Vancouver. Since Dr. Petersdorf said my treatment is "bread and butter" I thought I'd see what the guy in Vancouver had to say. It would be a lot easier to go to Vancouver than to Seattle all of the time. I thought yesterday would just be determining which doctor I felt most comfortable with. Wrong. He came in and had questioned everything the doctor in Seattle had told us. He doesn't seem to think I need to be treated as long, he wants me to have more biopsies, etc. We left feeling pretty dazed and confused. What do we do now? Who do we listen to? I don't want to have more chemo than I need, but I sure as heck want the cancer to be killed! After talking to everyone, we decided to try to get an appointment for a third opinion. On Thursday I'll be seeing a doctor that was recommended by another doctor in town (who also has lymphoma). I read a little about the doctor I'll be seeing and found out he was one of the doctors who treated Lance Armstrong! I thought that was pretty cool. We'll see what he has to say. Hopefully he doesn't have another different approach.

Whatever my decision is, chemo must be started next week. I can't wait any longer. I haven't gotten the results from my PET scan back yet, but it freaks me out to know that it's just eating away at me. I want it GONE!

I've been totally lethargic the last few days. The doctor increased my oxycontin from 40mg twice daily to 80mg twice daily with breakthrough oxycodone in the afternoon. Perhaps that explains the sudden tiredness. I sure hope so. My appetite is still on vacay though. Nothing sounds good, nothing looks good...I basically have to force myself to eat.

Well, I think that's the latest! I think I'm leaning more towards Seattle at this point. The cancer center I went to yesterday was really depressing to me. Everyone in the chemo area was just lined up chair after chair getting injected. In Seattle, I'd have my own private room with a bed and TV...sounds so much more comfortable, especially since chemo is pretty much an all day thing.

Please pray that my PET scan comes back clear. I've been very lucky so far. My CT scan was clear, my blood is normal....as of now, it appears to only be in my femur.

Thanks for reading my blog. It's pretty boring stuff, but I know everyone is curious as to what's going on. :) Thanks for the cards, prayers, flowers.....all of you mean so much to me and I wouldn't be able to make it through this without all of the support!

Love, Katie

P.S. I always get busy with all of the crappy cancer stuff and forget about the exciting fertility stuff!! I'm up to three shots daily now. Joe has taken over as my shot-giver and he's doing a fantastic job. Sue had to give me one today though, as for the next two days I have to have an additional one at noon. I have another internal ultrasound and more blood work tomorrow. It looks like the retrieval will either be Saturday or Sunday! Yesterday I had 20 follicles on each ovary. Each of those follicles have many eggs inside, so I'll have a very good harvest. That sounds kinda weird, but I guess that's what it is! They said they can take pictures of the embryos before they freeze them, so Joe and I will have a little memento and something to hang on the fridge! Pretty neat!