Tuesday, April 3, 2012

You Learn- Alanis Morrisette

I am close to the finish line. I have a week left or a week and a half. My schedule continues to change. Having a changing schedule doesn't work so well when I am trying to arrange rides. My Seattle team has been flexible and understanding. I always have a ride and sometimes babysitters. Thank you Seattle team!
Next week is my 7th week of radiation. I have had 5 out of 10 Cyber knife treatments and completed my general chest radiation. Monday I will have my 6th cyber knife and my first stereotactic radiation just for my chest tumor- high dose radiation for the tumor only. For the stereotactic I have to hold my breath and the table I am on will spin around to get all angles. The cyber knife is a 50minute nap on a cushioned table. They play soft music and the machine spins around me. They use my markers to know where to treat. Technology is amazing.
What about me, how am I holding up? Well chemo is done which means goodbye steroids and hello leg pain. I am taking more pain pills. I am truly exhausted. I hobble as much as I can. I have had fevers off and on all week. They are low grade but uncomfortable. So my days and evenings consist of sleeping, hobbling and taking lots of pills. Some evenings include playing with my little guy and putting him down for the night. Mostly I rest. I am so thankful to have family help!! Oh yeah, my hematocrit is 26 and I feel like garbage so I will have 2 units of blood transfused next week. I hope it will give me a little more energy to make it through....
It's Monday now and I made it through today, not very well. I spent an hour on the table this morning while they set me up and treated me with the stereotactic radiation. They used tape on my 2nd degree chest burn and my leg hurt a lot so I spent the hour trying not to cry and following the holding my breath directions. Then I was provided a place to rest for my 2.5 hour wait time till my next radiation at 1pm. It was an exam table with the crinkly paper. I did sleep for a little bit and was awoken by an over active automatic soap dispenser. It kept disposing soap loudly and created a large pile of foam. Finally I am off to hospital number 2 for cyber knife. Too much in one day if you ask me. My leg pain has really ramped up. So I am going to have to address this issue now.

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1 comment:

Anna said...

You can do it! Had a dream about you last night. We were in Benin. :)