Saturday, October 26, 2019

Kwik Health Update-Fall 2019

Wynn on a Fall ride
It's been a while since I last posted.  The summer months were good for me.  Continued rehab has helped me get stronger so my multiple hip surgeries of 2018 feel, increasingly, like a distant past.  Although the actual hip joint feels OK, the surrounding muscles, ligaments, tendons and skin have taken on a new feeling and appearance.  I have a lot of scar tissue along the surgical site, which doesn't feel normal, and may never.  Despite doing all the recommended therapies, now that I am approaching a year and a half since my third surgery, it is more and more doubtful that the scar tissue will ever breakdown.  I'm pretty asymmetric...not only is my left hip area weaker, but it is visibly smaller.  I've mostly shed my cane, except in my house going up the stairs, and when I'm out and know I will be walking a long distance.  Using the cane helps relieve the intense muscle ache...that butt burn, and gives me some assistance with my nagging right knee.  (Rehabbing my left hip has put added stress on my right knee.  I'm told this is pretty common. I need to get it checked out, but have been avoiding orthopods for as long as possible.)

In July I had routine CT scans of my chest, abdomen and pelvis, along with a brain MRI.  The good news is that my cancer is stable below my neck, and we think it's stable in my head. The brain tumor that I had CyberKnifed in 2017 is looking a little funky.  It's not clear if it's increasing in size, or more likely, radiation necrosis, with delayed inflammation. I was referred to see a neurologist, and have very minor symptoms...so minor that I haven't notice anything.  My team of doctors isn't concerned right now, so I'm trying not to be.  I'm scheduled for follow-up imaging next month, which will hopefully tell me more. 

We recently went to Greece for a couple weeks.  I'll post pictures as soon as I can.