I unloaded on the doctor today. It boiled down to "everything hurts and I hate it." She listened patiently, took me seriously, and gave me reassurance. The point of my visit today was to decide which long-term oral medication I'll be on to prevent the cancer from ever coming back. I had gone for a bone scan, for a baseline of my bone density in case I ended up taking one of the aromitase inhibitors. They can cause osteoporosis all by themselves, so it would be something to test for often. However, this class of medications can also cause muscle and joint pain. In fact, they're practically guaranteed to. After spending several minutes of me complaining about how bad my fibromyalgia flare has been over the last week, she said that aromitase inhibitors are no fun for people with fibro. She compared this to a race, saying it would be like holding me back at the starting line to take them. She said that there is "good old tamoxifen" in this situation. It's an old drug (and cheap!), which can have a few side effects of its own, like hot flashes and hair thinning. But joint pain isn't an automatic with it, so it's what we will try first. All the same, it's sitting in the pharmacy bag in my purse right now. I haven't worked up the nerve to take my first dose. I have a friend who has taken both kinds of drugs. She did poorly on each, and she tells me often how little she likes them. I'm a little scared of it.
When I was first being screened today, having to ascribe a number to my pain levels, the nurse who did my intake asked me whether I'd ever tried a weighted blanket. I've thought of it often, but the price held me back. She said I could probably get a great deal on Amazon, but after hovering my finger over the "buy now" button, I backed off. I didn't want to pay for shipping, and I was leery of getting something I hadn't touched first. I knew I could pay a similar amount at someplace like Kohl's, but my daughter suggested I try Wal-Mart first. I looked all over the bedding section, and just as I was about to give up, I found the children's version. I bought a small, cotton-candy pink one, weighing in at just six pounds. It was enough to test the proof of concept. I've been under it for hours now. It doesn't breathe well. Even without the tamoxifen, I'm having hot flashes under this (and then freezing when I stick my feet out). If it doesn't inflame my notoriously sensitive lower back, then I might consider going over to Kohl's and getting the adult version that weighs 20 pounds, and is more like what I'm supposed to use, according to all advice.
The world smells like leaves all of a sudden. When I walked out of the house to go pick up meds and find the blanket, the smell hit me in the face. It was fantastic. It's a shame that the bitter cold from last week killed most of the leaves, rather than letting them turn beautiful colors down here. There are still a few, but a lot of the trees on my block look pitiful. At least I get the weather and the smells that go with this. I'll have a little hot spiced cider and squash soup, and my fall experience will be complete.
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