Back in the saddle again.

Feeling much better now that I’m back on a restricted sodium intake. No back pain to speak of. No cramping. Foot and ankle swelling almost completely gone. All accomplished without Lasix, although I came VERY close to caving in to that crutch two nights ago.

An ultrasound of my kidneys was performed this afternoon; I’ll learn the results of that study as well as yesterday’s blood work during my Friday morning visit with the urologist.

While I was in NY, I received the following email from the other cardiac surgeon in San Francisco:

“Sorry for the delay. I did review the CT scan that you sent. It appears to me that in addition to the heart mass, there are also some lung nodules. That being the case, the treatment options move away from primary surgery to something like radiation/chemotherapy, depending on tumor analysis. If the lung nodules were tumor, it would not make sense to try to remove the heart mass. I assume your physicians have presented all the data to a tumor board? One option would be for them to refer you to the [SF2] Cancer Center. Hope this helps.”

As previously discussed, tumor analysis, review of treatment options, and consultation with numerous physicians has yielded contradictory expert opinion. Absent consensus of opinion, I get to do whatever I want. Just the way I like things to be. Allow me to briefly summarize who I have consulted with thus far: two highly-renowned cardiac surgeons in San Francisco (aka SF1 and SF2), two Los Angeles experts that specialize in the treatment of sarcomas via chemotherapy (LA1 and LA2), the world’s leading authority on the treatment of soft tissue sarcomas (NY1), a renegade MD (NY2) whose treatment regimen is smirked at by most other doctors, and in Santa Barbara a primary care physician, a cardiologist, a surgeon, an oncologist, and by Friday lunchtime a urologist will have been added to the list. All in ten weeks. Think I’ve been a little busy?

As you may recall from prior posts, I’ve selected the renegade doctor to guide me on the medical portion of this journey. Here’s a picture of him:





















JUST KIDDING!!!! Had you going there, huh? I just couldn’t resist the temptation to post a photo of this handsome holy man in India snapped by Jill, our NY host, during her recent journey there. NY2 is actually a respectable-looking physician with a high-end office in the Park Avenue area of Manhattan. Apparently he has many long-term patients, always a comforting sign in this business.