When calling, emailing, faxing your health professional you need to know what to say, and it doesn't have to be all smarty-pants medical jargon.
It needs to be concise and factual.
I feel like crap doesn't help.
I feel like crap with chest heaviness and a temp of 101.5 does.
Always know your temperature before calling a doc.
Here's my email update to my fab NP from Dana Farber.
Hi Melisa, Bad news. This is Hillary St.Pierre. Thanks for your email. It's been a while since I've seen you. I missed my six week check up due to illness/ chaos. I restarted chemo (Velbam) to maintain my cancer, and unfortunately have not been able to wean myself off Prednisone (I'm on 2mg daily). However, this past week I was hospitalized with bilateral PEs and pneumonia. My Vital capacity has gone down 7% since June (before the PEs were discovered). I feel like I'm failing more and am wondering what can be done to stop any progression. I'm taking lovenox and have switched my PCP prophylaxis from Bactrim to mepron due to ideological myelosuppression (my ANC was 290). I need to know if I should keep weaning my photo pheresis (I'm down to two weeks a month), keep on, or just stop. Should I get a pneumonia vaccine? Any vaccines? I'd just like to check-up. I'll call the office tomorrow to schedule an appointment. I just wanted to give you a heads up. If there is anything special you'd like me to bring let me know. Thanks.
Hill
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