25 June 2024
Congratulations to the Florida Panthers for winning the Stanley Cup! What a feat! 🏒🏆
Yesterday at physical therapy, Shannon cut me loose. She said stop for 3 months and if I need it, see my primary care physician and get another prescription for physical therapy. Honestly, I have no idea if it helped but it certainly didn’t hurt and gave me a chance to build up a little endurance.
Jim and Holley picked me up around 5:30 to head to the Secret Garden just off the beach. As always, we stopped in the lobby and had cocktails.
It’s a very cozy lobby and I’ve been in here when the fireplace is going. Unfortunately, there was no harpist last night.
With the rain clouds, we didn’t know if we would be sitting inside or outside. Outside on the intracoastal is always preferred. We took a chance on outside dining.
We drooled over the yachts and multimillion dollar homes across the way.
When we go to the Secret Garden, we always ask for Yelena. She’s been there for several years and we now consider her family.
She’s outgoing, fun, and she puts up with us. Let’s face it, we can get a little rowdy sometimes.
Holly told Yelena about my blog and Yelena volunteered to be interviewed. I plan to get in touch with her and figure out the best way to do that. Look forward to it sometime soon.
I haven’t been drinking lately. For several months. The only time I really do is if someone is driving and we go to a restaurant or movie night with Chris. I don’t know what happened to me last night but I overdid it. I had a martini when we sat in the lobby. I had a glass of wine with dinner, half a glass of champagne with dessert and Elena comped up some Limoncello.
After I got home I knew I was in trouble. I always know when I’m about to vomit because my mouth begins to water. I made it to the toilet and bowed to the thunder jug. After twice making my sacrifice, I made it back to bed and finally got to sleep. I haven’t done that in years and I hope to not do that again in years. I didn’t really drink any more than I usually do at the Secret Garden but maybe I just wasn’t used to alcohol any more. \
Today I headed for a meeting with my oncologist. The front desk heaped praise on me for providing the food last week. Then they sent back to the infusion center. The infusion center didn’t know what to do with me since I wasn’t scheduled for one. Finally Pat took me around to the offices and we got everything figured out.
At first, Dr. Velez misread my chart and thought my left ventricle ejection fraction had recovered to 62% (almost normal) until I told him the last MUGA scan was 40%. The long and short of it is there isn’t really any other good option for me other than Herceptin. However, he agrees with my cardiologist to stop the Herceptin treatments for good. I’m done with chemotherapy! 🥂👏🏻🌈
I’ll still have echocardiograms to check whether or not my heart recovers and I’ll follow up appointments with Dr. Velez for every 3 months, then eventually 6 months and finally yearly appointments. They’ll also continue to do the Signatera tests. He’s scheduled the next echocardiogram for August and also the removal of my port in August.
Before I left, I went and hugged Pat goodby. More often than not, she was my nurse. I also left a full bag of Tootsie Roll mini’s at the nurses station and also with the front desk. From now on, it’s checkups!
Stay tuned!
