plz give me advice

kevindee

i have had pain in my left side for about 2 weeks. i seen my onco dr last. he asked me to rate the pain at that time it was about a 3 so he said dont worry. put me on iron pill called slow fe. i took it twice. then quit. he than ordered blood work and told me it would take about a week for the tests to come back. a few days later i went to drs, office and found out i had a uti. trace of blood in urine. i took levaquin 750mg for three days. my stool is black side still hurts its like a dull burning pain, needless to say im very nervous. i had a pet scan in june should i ask for another one if covered by insure. i just finished my rad oct. 3 chemo in june. im always tired. im on arimidex . but am scared of reacurrance plz help me someone. what should i do. i call the drs over everything i dont want them to think im hypercon. they also gave me a pill for yeast infection, this mmonth my white cell count went down to 2.8. i just dont know what to think. my side is throbbing no. should press the issue why is my stool black. i havent taken the iron pill for 4 days and like i said i only took it twice. plz help. deedee

artizan

You are not a hypochondirac
Your symptoms are real. Don't start thinking that it is you. It is hard to express what you feel and hard for doctors to understand what you are feeling. It is scarey being a cancer patient. It is all so new and foreign. I think you need to be persistant with your doctors and don't be afraid to change doctors if you don't click with the one you have. My cancer was 9 1/2 years ago and I still have weird pains and scares. Keep trying to find the answer.

gemsa

artizan said:

You are not a hypochondirac
Your symptoms are real. Don't start thinking that it is you. It is hard to express what you feel and hard for doctors to understand what you are feeling. It is scarey being a cancer patient. It is all so new and foreign. I think you need to be persistant with your doctors and don't be afraid to change doctors if you don't click with the one you have. My cancer was 9 1/2 years ago and I still have weird pains and scares. Keep trying to find the answer.

Agree with artizan
You need to be able to feel comfortable with the answers given you by your doctors. If not, keep pressing for a real diagnosis for what you are feeling. If you are not comfortable explaining your concerns and symptoms to your doctor, you should switch. The black stools are most likely from taking iron, as it is a common side effect.

phoenixrising

Dee, Please continue taking
Dee, Please continue taking the antibiotics your Dr. prescribed. It looks like he thinks you have a severe infection. Like the gals said, stools can appear black when taking iron, so please don't worry. BUT, if your pain has increased keep pestering until you get answers.
You've been through a lot and obviously something is not right. How can you not panic??
You can't compare yourself to the people in the Dr.'s office unless they've been through what you have, so who cares what they think. Hopefully they won't ever find out what it's like.

A big hug to you and call, call, call
jan

RE

Infections
Hello Dee,

First off you are not a hypercon, you are a cancer patient. Feeling scared of recurrence is very normal so please don't beat yourself up over it. Since my last cancer battle I have been plagued with yeast infections that cause a lot of abdominal and side pain. I have taken Levaquin to cure them and it has helped a lot. There have been a few infections though that were difficult to get rid of and I had to have two complete cycles of the Levaquin to clear the infection.

That said Dee if you are not comfortable with what the doctors have told you then by all means call them back and explain that you need to be seen. Tell your doctor how uncomfortable you are and that you need a level of reassurance that this pain is not cancer. Let them explain to you in words you understand how they have determined it is not cancer. Whenever I have a yeast infection it helps me to ask how advanced it is, was it at the beginning stages or was it a raging infection. The doctors know this information by the tests they ran to find the infection. Please do not be intimidated by your doctors, they are a part of you medical team and so are you! Ask questions if you do not understand what they tell you, they can always explain it to you in a more understandable format.

My best to you Dee and I hope you feel better real soon!

RE