Its Boosday!

Boo is doing great, and is starting to respond more and more to her new name.

I got up last night to use the restroom and noticed that she had moved off the couch and into the office, where she also has a bed -- she has a bed in the bedroom also, but maybe she was shy about coming in uninvited. So I invited her up on the bed for the first time. I know that this can a slippery slope if you don't plan to have the dog on the bed all the time, but its nice to have a dog on the bed, I think. Boo will learn eventually that the rule is: she can be on the bed, but only when Jen's *not* here. This worked great with Kaia, though there was nearly always some pouting on Kaia's part.

Boo on her couch.

So far, it's eerie how familiar Boo feels. She's been here less than 48 hours and already it seems like I've known her for far longer than that. She does look a lot like Mia (the all-white girldog that I had before Kaia) and acts a lot like both of them. But its more than that -- she's so easy to have around that I have to keep reminding myself that we only just met, and that this house and my expectations are all new to her.

I left briefly yesterday and there were no accidents or destroyed furniture or chewed-up shoes when I returned, and I heard no howling or barking. I wasn't too worried, but this is all a good sign. I'll leave for a little longer today at some point, and I'm hoping that it all continues to work out.

Mia in about 2009

In my experience with adopted hounds (Boo is my 8th greyhound) there is a pretty standard process by which they settle into their new homes. All greyhounds have had lives before, and have been uprooted many times. Most are shipped off to trainers in other states and may race in various different locations as well. Boo, as far as I can tell, was raised in Georgia, and raced in Kansas and West Virginia. It seems that she was then sold to a farm in Iowa where she had 4 litters of pups -- 15 total. Then, after retirement, on to Minnesota to live with a foster family for 2 weeks, then another foster family for a few weeks, and then -- finally -- here. So it's understandable that she doesn't really know whether this is just a stop off, or if she lives here now. Even still, she's quiet and well-behaved. This is one of the reasons (and a sad one, honestly) that greyhounds are favored by animal research facilities: they take well to being kenneled, and are quiet and don't complain very much. Some veterinarians also keep a greyhound as a blood donor: all dogs have the same blood type, and greyhounds have a higher than normal Total Blood Volume (TBV). They also tolerate having an IV in all the time, will live in a kennel, and are quiet and well mannered.

Kaia about 2010

So, after many changes in their past lives, I find that the first 3-6 months of being in their "forever home" the dogs are friendly and social, but aren't sure what this new place is. After that period, when it seems like they've figured out that they're really going to stay, I find that the next 3-6 months are key as they become very attached and may have some separation anxiety. The dog's personality determines what form this insecurity takes and the degree to which it manifests. After that 3-6 month separation anxiety period, the greyhounds seem to relax and settle in. My job is to be as consistent a fixture in her life as I can, and to establish safe spaces for her and a reliable routine. The more she feels safe here, the more she'll relax and trust that she's not going anywhere.

The Back, etc.


Over the past few days I've been stretching out my lower back in a quest to find something -- anything -- to alleviate the pain. This seems to help a bit, and I'm hoping that it will continue to get better. Likewise, I've been walking. No marathon treks yet, but 6 or 8 blocks at least each day. Hopefully this will strengthen the back and encourage the muscles to relax a bit.

Strangely, this sounds really good about now.

The leg has been better. I still don't know what's going on down there, but I do think that the nerves (that were messed up in the surgery) are coming back, as I feel mildly painful electric jolts into my inner thighs. And -- a new thing -- my thigh muscles in both legs are sore, not just the left leg, which was the troublesome one before. You know how sometimes your muscles cramp or spasm when you get really gold? My thighs feel like that sometimes during the day No spasms exactly, but the same soreness that might come from being punched in the thigh. Its not in exactly the same area as the numbness was, though. So it might be related, it might not. Its an annoying mystery.

The pain meds (60 mg daily) appear to be working for the most part. Coupled with the stretching and walking, I don't feel the need to go any higher. I'm hopeful that Mayo will have some insight, and I have a lot of eggs in that particular basket, hoping I'll have some answers sooner rather than later. I really do need to get off of these pain meds, though. On the day that I hit the 60mg/day level, I noticed that my skin looked ashen and there were dark circles under my eyes. It reminded me of my first glimpse of myself post-chemo. Anyhow: nothing new to report on that front, other than its all holding steady.

Another Possibility

Last night, right about at 4 am, I woke up again with pain in my leg. But I think I may have another idea as to the pain's cause.

About 15 months ago I had abdominal surgery. This was a deep and invasive procure that left an enormous scar. The scar is small potatoes in the scheme of things, though it still surprises me when I see it in the mirror. The incision, when open, was probably big enough to pass a cantaloupe through, easily.

When I awoke from the anesthesia I complained of numbness in the inner thighs, which the doctors originally attributed to normal post-operative stuff. But as months went by and I still couldn't feel anything in the thighs, they mentioned that there are many tiny nerves in the area where they had to operate, and likely a few of them were cut in the process. It was, they assured me, a delicate multi-hour procedure that involved 3 surgeons. And its fricking Mayo Clinic -- not Doctor Nick's Hollywood Upstairs Medical Center -- with one of the world's leading specialists in bladder cancer on the job. The nerve group in the area where they were operating ties into the inner thighs and -- if cut -- could indeed cause numbness there. I was told that this numbness would just likely be the way that it is. The implication was that its a small price to pay (without it they would not have been able to do the lifesaving surgery) and that it doesn't affect quality of life very much. And they're right. Until now.

I have gotten used to the numbness over the past year and happened to notice a few days ago that it is not as numb as it once was. It is not back to 100%, but it's definitely better. I feel that the pain in the left leg could be part of those nerves coming back to life, reattaching, or recovering from that trauma. When I really pay close attention when its at its worst, its not always a constant pain, but more like a shooting pain. This implies (at least to me) that it is neurological and possibly not bone related.

Oh: one more thing to add in, here: I tried the Tiger Balm patch yesterday on leg and back. The back seemed to improve by about 10-15%, which was very nice. Although the burning feeling from the Tiger Balm is a little distracting and makes it hard to forget about the back. Possibly its just that I was focusing more on the Tiger Balm than on the back pain, but it really seemed like I was able to sit in uncomfortable chairs at dinner without pain. Of course, that could just be the Oxy 15. Anyhow, not really a perfect scientific experiment, but one that I'm continuing again today. Heck: it's worth a buck to have some relief. I could do half-assed testimonials for them, with a quote like that.

But the Tiger Balm on the leg: not so good. I had it on for about 3 hours, and it seemed to progressively make the leg pain worse, feeling finally like I had my upper thigh in a hydraulic vice that was made of molten lava and operated by satan. The pain faded after I removed the patch (which I tried to stick on to my back with only limited success, the adhesive quickly loses stickiness). So, for whatever reason (and I have a feeling that doctors couldn't tell me why, either) the Tiger Balm aggravated the leg and soothed the back. Which -- perhaps scientifically, now -- implies that they are different kinds of pain, or at least come from different sources. It implies to me that the back pain is largely muscular (though it may have a bone/spine/disc origin) but the leg is either bone or neurological. 

Catching up to the rest of the story here, the leg pain *could* be those nerves regenerating or rebuilding or whatever they're doing in there. The plus side, if true, means that the pain is not cancerous. And having the beginnings of never-ending cancerous bone pain is a pretty bleak horizon to stare at. The downside of the nerve-ending hypothesis is that the pain may continue for an unspecified period of time, with no treatment that I am aware of to dull the pain... other than my pal Oxy.

Doing some research (the internet is a dangerous thing) it seems like the pain could also possibly be sciatica. BUT: The sciatic nerve runs down the back of the thigh. My pain is definitely on the front. So, my armchair self-diagnosis is currently neurological.

Perhaps Ironically, I saw an neurologist at Mayo last fall, who said that my back pain was not neurological. I'm meeting with 3 docs at may in a few weeks, none of which are a neurologist. Now, I do wish I had a meeting with a neurologist scheduled, as I have a feeling that the orthopedist is going to want to send me back to the neurologist for the leg pain. I'll call tomorrow and see if I can squeak in a neurologist visit, also.

It is still odd that the pain centers on the old bone break. And I do know that feeling well: it would sometimes ache a bit for a day or so when there was a storm or pressure change, for a few years after the break. It hasn't really troubled me at all in many years, and it has never been this painful, this consistently.

To further confuse the issue and disagree with myself, the theory of post-chemo pain does still make sense, also. There is documented evidence of old bone break pain after chemo (Jen was nice enough to dig some up for me).

More will be discovered at Mayo. And if not, I'll be highly frustrated and extremely discouraged. I'm still hopeful at the moment, of course, but expect a rant or two if I come back from Rochester with no better insight into the back and leg pain.

The Dark Side of Morning

As has happened for the past few nights, I have been dragged slowly and inevitably from the depths of sleep at almost exactly 4 am. Whereas the back pain is usually the primary source of pain, these days it often takes a backseat to the bone pain that I feel in my left femur (the upper leg bone, and the biggest bone in your body).

I know I've talked about it, though it is worth mentioning again that I broke this femur in a motorcycle accident in 1991, and there is also a rod down the middle of the femur. It seems odd that a 20-year old injury (that has caused me no pain at all since about 1994) has started hurting again within the past 2 months, and so deeply and intensely. I have been told that old scars and wounds can reopen during chemo, but I have not yet been able to get an answer as to how this might relate to old broken bones. And also: chemo is over, already.

Of course, my brain goes straight to bone metastases -- or "bone involvement" as doctors so gently like to put it. I've had bone scans (but, admittedly, not since before I felt this pain) that *should* catch any metastatic disease in the bones. Though I'm still unclear exactly how bone scans work: I don't know if they're head-to-toe scans, or simply confined to the same area they're doing the PET/CT on, as some sort of bonus ("buy a PET/CT now and get a free bone scan!") freebie. After my last PET/CT scans in October, Dr Grampa (my now-former oncologist) told me that my bone scan was negative. I was surprised: I hadn't been told that I was even getting a bone scan, I thought I was just getting a PET/CT. Yet they somehow managed to do it at the same time using (apparently) the same equipment, without me knowing. Maybe its just a guy in the control booth eating a sandwich who looks over at me lying on the table -- really carefully -- for like a minute, and then checks a big box that says: "Bone Scan = Awesome."

All I really know about bone scans is that in the movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" (sic), Will Smith's mustachioed character sells bone-density scanners when he's not napping with his young son on public bathroom floors, getting arrested, working his ass off for the unappreciative Man, or having his wife leave him. You should watch it: its really an uplifting movie. In the end, it taught me very little about bone scans, though.

But the main point being: my leg hurts. And so far no one knows why. Add that to the list of complaints that I need to talk to an orthopedist about, which will happen at Mayo in a week or so. 

Yesterday night when the leg was hurting I thought it might be because I'd walked more than normal that evening (about 2.5 miles), more than my usual route. And when I woke up last night I took an oxy(co)done because the pain was keeping me from sleeping, and also because the docs are always bugging me to take them for what they call "breakout" pain. So I did, but really felt no relief from it at all until about 6. And then I slept uncomfortably and groggily until about 9:30.

The Oxy-co-done is a shitty sleep aid, I find. It leaves you not rested and fresh as a daisy, ready to solve the world's problems... but instead the Ox claws you slowly awake until you find yourself in a (hopefully metaphorical) greasy heap: sleep having snuck out on you without paying the rent some time ago when you weren't looking, and leaving you glaring grumpily at the sun and feeling like you ought to be deciding between warm beer or vodka from a styrofoam cup with a cigarette floating in it for breakfast. As it turns out, I had yogurt, granola and a banana -- but it felt like I wasn't really being true to the character.

Tonight I did not go for a walk at all, partially to see if there was any difference in the pain. There wasn't. So I might as well at least get the exercise of walking if I'm going to have the pain anyhow. I'm also not taking any of the extra Oxy tonight, for the aforementioned reasons. 

I look forward to getting this bone stuff looked at, and I have decided that if they also (as pretty much all of the other doctors have done) throw up their hands and say: "Huh. Well, that shouldn't be happening! I sure wish we knew what was going on, there!" I may start trashing the place. Luckily, Mayo is great at figuring out stuff that is hard to figure out, but I wasn't pleased with their Harlem-Globetrotters-esque lightning fast handoffs that I went through last time there, only to learn that my back/bone issues are not something that falls under the purview of urology, medical oncology, radiation oncology or neurology. Knowing what it is not is strangely not as satisfying as doctors might guess. I'd rather focus on what it is. 

Anyhow, the leg pain has subsided again for the moment, so I guess I'll see if I can get some sleep.