Survivorship Clinic

​My infusion center sponsors a Survivorship Clinic, which I attended today. I was surprised when they'd allotted 3 hours for the clinic, but it really did last that long. They had about 4 of us each in our own private exam room, and they had a rotation schedule all written up so that by the end we had all seen who we needed to see. We had filled out a 4 page questionnaire last week so they knew our individual concerns and who we'd need to see. I visited with the dietician, a social worker, the physical therapist who specializes in lymphedema, and a nurse practitioner.

Dietician had good things to say about what I'm eating, need to work on getting more veggies otherwise diet looks good.

Social worker told me what was available if I had financial problems in the future, or if I get depressed or whatever

The physical therapist measured the circumference of each of my arms every 10 cm and recorded them, told me I look good now, gave me handouts of what to watch for, said it would be a good idea to wrap my arm with an ace wrap when we fly to Seattle just to be on the safe side. She also told me about a free exercise program available at the Y just for cancer patients, Mondays and Wednesday from 5:30-7. She thought they also offered a 75% membership discount if you completed the 3 month course. Certainly something I'll at least look into.

then the nurse practitioner did a physical and answered my questions. I asked about telling the difference in joint pain, whether it was a side effect of Arimidex or from aging or the weather, or when it could be a sign of metastasis. She said Arimidex pain would be more sporadic, vary in intensity, not always in same place - sometimes knee, sometimes ankle, etc. Mets would be same area, would get worse, would cause a change in how I lived my life, like it would affect my sleep, or I'd be doing things a certain way to avoid the pain, would start needing pain meds when didn't need them before. I need to call if I develop any skin changes, like redness or a rash on my chest, or unintentional weight loss, or shortness of breath with activities that I'd previously been able to do.

There was some waiting and delay between them, but not too bad. Definitely time well spent.I have a whole packet of material to read through, and they'll also be sending me a summary of what we discussed.