7 June 2024
Sigh! I met with the cardiologist this morning, Dr. Tepper, and he threw me a curve when he recommended I come off Herceptin completely. His reasoning is even if I stop Herceptin for a while and an echocardiogram shows my left ventricle ejection fraction improves, the next Herceptin treatment will simply cause the ejection fraction to decrease again. I apparently don’t react well to Herceptin.
He’s restarted me on 50 mg of Losartin to ease the stress on my heart. He says there’s nothing to repair any damage but we can at least reduce the stress. I’ll be on that for 1 month and then he intends to add one more drug for my heart after some time on Losartin.
He did offer to recommend me to a friend of his that has more expertise with the drug Herceptin and the heart, but honestly, I think he will tell me the same thing as Dr. Tepper. I go in for blood work for Dr. Tepper in two weeks and a follow up visit in 1 month.
I texted Dr. Velez, my oncologist, the information from Dr. Tepper and told him to call him if he wanted to discuss it. I have no idea what Dr. Velez will say. Dr. Tepper suggested there may be an alternative to Herceptin.
All I know is I’m tired of all this. I feel like I’ve been hit with a quadruple whammy from being put on insulin, having to fool with continuous glucose monitors, the Herceptin problem and the ankle problem. The ankle, by the way, is Monday’s doctor visit to find out if I need surgery.
Life sometimes gets to be too much. I would like to get in the Jeep and travel somewhere far away in the woods and stay there for a couple of months. Since I’m probably physically incapable of sleeping in a tent anymore, I prefer a luxurious cabin on a lake. Let me know if you know of one.
By the by, my new wallet came in and I think I’m gonna like it. It certainly is thinner but that’s because it only has the capability of holding 6 credit/id cards. I had to carefully select which ones to include and left all the others in my old wallet. I figure the next time I visit a national park, I can always pull out the lifetime national park pass and put it in the new wallet.
In the immortal words of Willie Nelson,
“Well I gotta get drunk and I sure do dread it
‘Cause I know just what I’m gonna do
I’ll start to spend my money callin’ everybody honey
And wind up singin’ the blues
I’ll spend my whole paycheck on some old wreck
And brother I can name you a few
Well I gotta get drunk and I sure do dread it
‘Cause I know just what I’m gonna do”
Stay tuned!
Pro note: an Apple wallet take up less space than a leather wallet and you can make calls with it. Just sayin’.