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Part 11...The rollercoaster ride

Happy International Brain Tumor Day! We already celebrated national Brian day back on March 6th (happy belated). It has been a few days since I last blogged. The headaches continue and have been a bit worse than normal lately. We are in full allergy season here in upstate NY and we are also experiencing some dangerous air quality levels due to an active forest fire across the border in Canada.  So, there are a lot of possible factors playing havoc all at the same time.  Over the past 2 weeks I started having some water retention concerns and found that my hands and feet were both swollen and much stiffer than normal. My PCP now has me on a low dose of Lasix which has actually been helping to keep the edema away. I now have a much greater appreciation for the drug and didn't realize anyone could actually spend half the day running back and forth to the bathroom. To top it all off, I won the annual award for being the first family member to get covered in poison ivy. Typical...
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Part 10...Clearer picture

May 11, 2023 Fortunately for you the reader, this is where the journey starts to slow down as I entered the waiting game. My inpatient hospitalization was about 72hours and by that time I was itching to get back home. Repeat blood work showed no great concerns and the MRI results needed to be discussed with Neurosurgery.  On this date my wife and I sat alongside a local Neurosurgeon who also happened to be the head of the Mobile Stroke Unit for UR Medicine (God knows what you need at any time, and so, He will bring just the right people to offer you what you need). I can only hope that other professions share the sense of family and strong bonds that we have within the medical field. Even though we couldn't get the answers to all of our questions, empathy, friendship and just having the ability to be comfortable enough to talk about our concerns was more than we could have asked for.  There is a reason I chose nursing, primarily to be an advocate for my patients and...
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Part 9… The Lords Prayer

Years ago I was fortunate enough to help care for a grandparent who was slowly succumbing to cancer. Her primary diagnosis of  adenocarcinoma of the lung would later lead to metastasis of the brain and in a Hail Mary attempt found her receiving weekly radiation. I remember her vividly telling us how uncomfortable she found it laying on the table, having her head strapped into the cage while receiving the “treatment”.  Even with the level of discomfort, she would later explain how many times she could recite the Lords Prayer before the treatment was over. It was her calming way of coping as she endured what would later be a losing battle.  Here I was day 2 of an inpatient hospitalization after completing the obligatory CT scan filling out the MRI screening form. For those not familiar with the MRI screen form it basically assures that there is no metal in/on your body that the strong magnetic field inside the scanner could play ping ping with. As simple as the form is, I f...
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Part 8...Headaches SUCK!

It was the morning of Saturday May 6th, I had stayed home from my weekend warrior commitment with the Air Force to attend to some family obligations. As the morning continued a dull generalized headache started to gain some traction. By noon the headache was real and even 800mg of Ibuprofen wasn't touching the pain. Luckily it came with no other symptoms other then the typical fuzzy vision which had been a daily occurance.  I am fortunate enough to have never experienced a migraine and to those who suffer from them I now have a new appreciation as to how debilitating a headache truly can be.  For some reason I had the idea to take my blood pressure. Yes, I was cheating and had my own blood pressure machine at home. Yes I already can see your eyes rolling as you explain how inaccurate that garbage is. Needless to say I took it anyway and was greeted with a reading of 180/110. I honestly believed this reading, I could feel that my blood pressure was elevated and I didn't feel go...
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Part 7...The Brian inside

Before we go any further, I truly had no idea the kind of response/interest I would receive regarding this blog. In all honesty, I didn't care who read them, or if you happened to like reading about this journey. This outlet, for people who haven't blogged, is a very therapeutic/cathartic way to get out all of the voices that play havoc in my head. It allows me to formulate my emotions in a safe and healthy manner. For anyone who has a need to express themselves, this is certainly one way to do so.  Having said that, I thank you for joining me on this journey and I thank all of you who have individually texted me in regards to my misspelling of BRAIN. Funny thing...When trying to type BRAIN in my phone while attempting to communicate with my family, that little thing called "autocorrect" kept changing the word. I can't say that I know too many Brians, so I am not too sure why autocorrect would assume that. After multiple attempts at trying to spell brain and havin...
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Part 6...What the hell did I get myself into?!

As legitimate as Core Medical Group appeared to be on the outside, I wasn't ready to give them all of my trust and confidence. They certainly talked a good talk and had actually established a rather logical plan to move forward with treatment. As luck has it, the first step in the process was to complete a full endocrinology blood panel which was scheduled to be done by a local "mobile phlebotomist". I might have failed to mention that Core Medical Group is based out of Florida. So here I was on a brisk spring morning on my way to work, detouring to meet up with this "mobile phlebotomist" in the parking lot of a local grocery store. He pulled up next to my vehicle, popped open the hatchback to his SUV and told me to hop in. I have watched too many horror movies and crime shows not to think the worst in this scenario. But I did as I was told and there I sat with rush hour speeding by getting my blood taken from some stranger in his trunk. Looking back at it, the ...
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Part 5...Settling for the new normal

 March 31, 2023 TESTOSTERONE, FASTING: 123.8 (123-814) WHAT!!!! Well this makes no sense. To be honest I had finished my Clomid prescription a few weeks prior to this blood work. None the less I was surprised, disappointed and concerned. Unfortunately I had not experienced any symptom relief while taking the higher dose but to have my Testosterone levels decrease in that amount time was very frustrating. Was I going to have to settle for this new normal? This opened the conversation back up regarding Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT) and of course the associated risks that it had. I wasn't satisfied with these options and started my quest to learn more about chronic low T.  I soon realized that maybe I needed to branch out from my PCP and get established with an endocrinologist. Endocrinologists are doctors who focus on hormones which control such things as metabolism, blood pressure, cholesterol, hunger, thirst, body temperature and more.  Welcome to the world of en...
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