Dog Days

We've reached the dog days of summer, a time that I associate with the buzzing of the annual cicadas. It's too hot and humid to do much in the garden, where the squash and the squash bugs are both trying to take over.

Aggressive but hot squash (with squash bugs)

As for myself, I have something of a medical hiatus just now, with no appointments for a few weeks. My endodontist appointment last week found no structural issues with my tooth, so I'm trying a steroid medication to reduce inflammation of the nerve. The tooth is slightly better, but I'm not sure it has much to do with the medication, from which I might have expected more dramatic results. So who knows, I may need to schedule another appointment to fill the gap. Clearly I can't be allowed to go too long without appointments!

The tooth situation comes with an insurance wrinkle. I have met out-of-pocket limits for the year and no longer have to pay medical bills this year. But because of the way insurance works here in the US, dental insurance is a separate matter. So now I have to pay again for the tooth! At least I didn't have to pay for the prescription, as that is a pharmacy matter, which falls under my medical insurance.

My next scheduled appointment is for my next PET scan, which will show us how I am doing on immunotherapy alone. (This is in contrast to my last scan, which showed what the combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy did for me.) Until I get the results it will be a bit hard to entertain clear ideas about the future, but both my oncologist and I are optimistic that the results will be good. In this context "good" means an absence of disease progression, not necessarily shrinkage or remission.