Drugs!

Today, Venita saw her family doctor, let’s call her Dr. Primary. Venita doesn’t know this Dr. well, having changed family doctors right before this whole thing blew up.

Dr. Primary said she was happy Venita had come to see her. Dr’s been copied on the path reports, and said she was planning to hunt Venita down this week, but in person is so much better than on the phone. Dr. Primary considers herself part of this cancer care team. Dr. Primary sees her role not only as family doctor for non-cancer-related problems, but also as the Dr. responsible for helping Venita hold her self sane and healthy as she goes through this ordeal.

Hallelujah! Venita finally found the Dr. who sees that as hir role!!

Dr. Primary asked all the right questions—about sleep, how often, how long; about eating; about anxiety, panic attacks, fearfulness, focus, stomach cramping, diarrhea. Dr. Primary was batting 1000. She said that people in Venita’ situation start to become unraveled and that she would help hold her together, even when it takes coordination with the cancer doctors. She wants to see Venita every 3 weeks for awhile, just to check up on her.

So now Venita has:

For depression and panic attacks: Paxil CR, 1x/day. starting at 12.5mg for one week, increasing to 25mg after that.

For anxiety: Xanax generic, .25mg, PRN, up to 3x/day.

For sleep: Ambien 5 or 10mg at bedtime.

Venita still has to read the drug info sheets that she received with the scrips. She knows that many of you have used these drugs before, and have explained your experiences, but please share again, even if you want to do that sharing privately in PM or Email to Venita.

Venita is confused about having Xanax for anxiety and Paxil for panic attacks. She always thought those two conditions were the same, but Dr. Primary clearly saw them as different. Any thought on that?

Venita also wants to know about addiction to these drugs and whether that is going to pose a problem. The way Dr. Primary was talking, Venita might need “a little help” all the way through chemo and radiation treatment, which means through year-end.

Tomorrow—Venita rescheduled her dental cleaning back to this busy time. She recently read that dental work during chemo is difficult because of the compromised immune system. Her body might have trouble with the “shower” of bacteria from a cleaning, and any open sores from procedures could be very slow or difficult to heal. The dentist’s office was very accommodating.