This is just a quick update
I finished the 10 full head radiation treatments last week on Wednesday. This week I passed out during my CT scanned and just had an EE G to check my brain as the doctor was concerned that I might have had a seizure during my scan
The good news is that I recovered very quickly after passing out so it's quite possible that I did not have a Seizure and the episode was related to tumor positioning in my head.
The real good news is my CT chest and torso scan did not show any growth in the cancer from before. So now we will wait 2 mos. and get a fresh MRI to gauge the radiation's success and I will sleep a lot.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
Resting here in Albany, soon Corvallis
Today is my first break from having my head completely bathed with radiation, and I guess it's going to take some time for the swoozy ringing to chill out. My balance is pretty off, so it's mostly bed rest and such. Only hurled once... Hopefully that will be isolated, as it was brought on by moving my head to lay down too quickly.
The other news, is that Ki and I were approved for a house in Corvallis, and will be trying to get over there in the coming days. With the house in Talent (so or) being mostly ready after a long weekend last week, Ki will be doing some long weekends with the help of our extremely generous and loving friends to finish packing and bringing our things up north. The apt here in Albany just isn't set up ideally for me to recover as well as for both our cohabitation needs.
My scalp is starting to really show the effects of the radiation, and we expect my hair to be gone for a while in the coming weeks. Hardly a big deal in the scheme of things. What I'm really looking forward to after my balance returns, is for the ringing in my ears to stop. It sounds like a bad use of a ring modulator being applied to what I hear, and if I didn't like it in old Tony Iommi guitar solos, I hardly care for it now. Imagine, well...any song being doubled with a cracked set of Caribbean steel drums... Lovely.
Well here's to good night's sleep once I get my head down, and increased mobility.
The other news, is that Ki and I were approved for a house in Corvallis, and will be trying to get over there in the coming days. With the house in Talent (so or) being mostly ready after a long weekend last week, Ki will be doing some long weekends with the help of our extremely generous and loving friends to finish packing and bringing our things up north. The apt here in Albany just isn't set up ideally for me to recover as well as for both our cohabitation needs.
My scalp is starting to really show the effects of the radiation, and we expect my hair to be gone for a while in the coming weeks. Hardly a big deal in the scheme of things. What I'm really looking forward to after my balance returns, is for the ringing in my ears to stop. It sounds like a bad use of a ring modulator being applied to what I hear, and if I didn't like it in old Tony Iommi guitar solos, I hardly care for it now. Imagine, well...any song being doubled with a cracked set of Caribbean steel drums... Lovely.
Well here's to good night's sleep once I get my head down, and increased mobility.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
A Salute to the Fleet
As in bottle of saline solution water for my mid week small success (well not so small...). I have to say major narcotics are super essential at this moment, but I wish they could be combined with something so as not to freeze up my plumbing so much. Likely my system just isn't used to having theses pills. Someone in a lab doing non-essential research get on this and you'll make serious dough.
Oh and no more fruit punch flavored water drink ever again... And I mean ever. It just confuses the question regarding regurgitated content, that's enough on that topic.
As for my radiation treatments, I've made 5 so far. With 5 more through next Wednesday (again no weekend zapping to give my grey matter a slight rest). I've had continual struggles with varying degrees of either losing consciousness, or being somewhere in between with standing and laying transitions, but that seems to be slightly improving. The rear location on my head are causing me this difficulty, so I'll expect that to reduce as the radiation shrinks the tumors.
I'm sure grateful and lucky for my support. Ki is just taking on so much, and my Mom, and siblings are making it so he can, while many of our friends are going to be helping him with packing, cleaning and research/house hunting in the Corvallis area.
I'm going to take a quick nap hopefully and relax now.
Oh and no more fruit punch flavored water drink ever again... And I mean ever. It just confuses the question regarding regurgitated content, that's enough on that topic.
As for my radiation treatments, I've made 5 so far. With 5 more through next Wednesday (again no weekend zapping to give my grey matter a slight rest). I've had continual struggles with varying degrees of either losing consciousness, or being somewhere in between with standing and laying transitions, but that seems to be slightly improving. The rear location on my head are causing me this difficulty, so I'll expect that to reduce as the radiation shrinks the tumors.
I'm sure grateful and lucky for my support. Ki is just taking on so much, and my Mom, and siblings are making it so he can, while many of our friends are going to be helping him with packing, cleaning and research/house hunting in the Corvallis area.
I'm going to take a quick nap hopefully and relax now.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Sunday Night Before Daily Dosing Begins
I'm happy my Mom, Sis and Brother arrived safely today. They had a lot of bad ice n snow on he way (liz and Mom met Tres at high mother in Law's home in SLC).
Tomorrow we'll drive up to Portland where we have an apt type hotel lined up for the week downtown. Ki and I decided it was best to save his FMLA time while the family is here, and can drive me to and from the hospital. He'll be able to stay up there except for Tues night as he's on call.
Then he and either Liz or Tres will go down to Talent to get the house packed up with the help of our wonderful friends. Over the next coming weeks we'll have to find a place here in the Corvallis area (likely with some help from a couple of our aforementioned friends... And my sister as I don't know what my recovery time will be). I have to admit that I can't take as active a role in the process and that's hard. Thank goodness we have such supportive friends volunteering to help!
So I've learned a couple of things... It freaks me out that my entire brain is being radiated, rather than having 4 spot radiation targets. But since the 4 we saw on the ct scan aren't in one spot it doesn't make sense to not get the whole area affected, and this ideally picks up spots which may not have been counted etc. Fair warning... If I stare long and intensely in a few mos. at you and make you dizzy, start to spew secret truths, or dance in a manner otherwise unbecoming to you general mood, I'm on the record as saying no powers have been acquired.
Also - freshly radiated brain with little food intake causes any image of food to seem like the ultimate in yummy gotta have now decision.
Advice? Don't eat it... Soups, lightly sautéed veggies, zero cal vita water and small amounts off ice creme are much smarter. This is due to the pain meds blocking normal potty movements... And it ain't fun to indulge if its building up in your gut while simultaneously dealing with brain throbbing cancer bits, yet fearing to take the pain meds as they've temporally blocking my insides.
Thank goodness for my partner Ki knowing ahead of time to give me stool softener and the special D.O. technique to help bound up insides start to move and ... A Fleet Enima!
This is hardly the big event of the moment, but it's a small victory, and I'll take it!
Tomorrow we'll drive up to Portland where we have an apt type hotel lined up for the week downtown. Ki and I decided it was best to save his FMLA time while the family is here, and can drive me to and from the hospital. He'll be able to stay up there except for Tues night as he's on call.
Then he and either Liz or Tres will go down to Talent to get the house packed up with the help of our wonderful friends. Over the next coming weeks we'll have to find a place here in the Corvallis area (likely with some help from a couple of our aforementioned friends... And my sister as I don't know what my recovery time will be). I have to admit that I can't take as active a role in the process and that's hard. Thank goodness we have such supportive friends volunteering to help!
So I've learned a couple of things... It freaks me out that my entire brain is being radiated, rather than having 4 spot radiation targets. But since the 4 we saw on the ct scan aren't in one spot it doesn't make sense to not get the whole area affected, and this ideally picks up spots which may not have been counted etc. Fair warning... If I stare long and intensely in a few mos. at you and make you dizzy, start to spew secret truths, or dance in a manner otherwise unbecoming to you general mood, I'm on the record as saying no powers have been acquired.
Also - freshly radiated brain with little food intake causes any image of food to seem like the ultimate in yummy gotta have now decision.
Advice? Don't eat it... Soups, lightly sautéed veggies, zero cal vita water and small amounts off ice creme are much smarter. This is due to the pain meds blocking normal potty movements... And it ain't fun to indulge if its building up in your gut while simultaneously dealing with brain throbbing cancer bits, yet fearing to take the pain meds as they've temporally blocking my insides.
Thank goodness for my partner Ki knowing ahead of time to give me stool softener and the special D.O. technique to help bound up insides start to move and ... A Fleet Enima!
This is hardly the big event of the moment, but it's a small victory, and I'll take it!
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Radiation treatment plans
So the schedule is in place for my radiation treatment.
Starting today (Thursday), I will have a treatment for the next 10 biz days to radiate all 4 of the mets in my head (the 3 smaller ones and the larger one with the bleeding).
Kind of quick, but I'm happier with that plan.
If after 2 mos an MRI shows remaining mets, I'll go under what they call The Gamma Knife which is a tool they use for brain work under 2mm's.
I'm pretty dizzy and using a wheelchair to move more then 20 feet. Hopefully the radiation will be as successful or better than the treatment I had last May on my groin.
Ki is looking forward to seeing me bald, but wig suggestions are welcome :)
More details to come and a clever name for my new radiation oncologist as Dr Soultrain isn't working on this round.
Starting today (Thursday), I will have a treatment for the next 10 biz days to radiate all 4 of the mets in my head (the 3 smaller ones and the larger one with the bleeding).
Kind of quick, but I'm happier with that plan.
If after 2 mos an MRI shows remaining mets, I'll go under what they call The Gamma Knife which is a tool they use for brain work under 2mm's.
I'm pretty dizzy and using a wheelchair to move more then 20 feet. Hopefully the radiation will be as successful or better than the treatment I had last May on my groin.
Ki is looking forward to seeing me bald, but wig suggestions are welcome :)
More details to come and a clever name for my new radiation oncologist as Dr Soultrain isn't working on this round.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Bad news with vision flickering
Quick update - we discovered 3 new cancer mets in my head. One in the back lower right which is bleeding and causing pressure and pain. The pressure is making my eyesight wonky, so forgive any sfvvgnrnj odd words which might slip in.
The other two (all three are relatively small), are in the front right on agitator more internal m the left lone.
Ki came down and we're heading to the Portland hospital for addition on the bleeding tumor this Thursday - not certain if we will start right then or get fitted with a head assembly that will need to form for however long. I'll see if they can give it a paisley look, but they might be busy...
From what I knew starting last Saturday, I had eaten bad yogurt casing me to vomit all day long. This dehydrated me significantly enough to need to go to the ER on Sunday. Ki asked to get a heat CT scan done but they didn't think it needed, or it wasn't communicated (he wasn't here yet).
Monday I was to follow up with my reg doc, but he was full and by the time we arrived he I was thinking we would just go to the ER. I passed out for a while in the multiple eg exam (sitting, standing, lying) and by the time I came to, my reg doc was in charge, and apparently we had a fire truck and an ambulance there (I was informed the firemen were nice to look at... Alas lol).
So back to the ER and Ki was already racing down. Steve had taken me on Sunday, and Daniel took care of me on Monday, which really made things insanely helpful. Daniel walked out of the room and told the staff, that Ki is a dr and wants a head CT scan. After the scan we ran an MTI to confirm the tumors were melanoma and that's where we are...
My family is coming up on Friday Mom Sister and Brother), and we plan to start the process to move me up north. We really didn't expect anything like this, but it's just part of the deal. I've been feeling that I should be living with Ki anyhow, and our wonderful friends are offering to help. The open question now is if this is a speed bump or a quickening of symptoms. It's possible these 3 popped in my head back after the initial IL2 treatment and having an edema (bleeding) just is part of Mrlanoma. Well know more after radiation and the follow up later this month.
The other two (all three are relatively small), are in the front right on agitator more internal m the left lone.
Ki came down and we're heading to the Portland hospital for addition on the bleeding tumor this Thursday - not certain if we will start right then or get fitted with a head assembly that will need to form for however long. I'll see if they can give it a paisley look, but they might be busy...
From what I knew starting last Saturday, I had eaten bad yogurt casing me to vomit all day long. This dehydrated me significantly enough to need to go to the ER on Sunday. Ki asked to get a heat CT scan done but they didn't think it needed, or it wasn't communicated (he wasn't here yet).
Monday I was to follow up with my reg doc, but he was full and by the time we arrived he I was thinking we would just go to the ER. I passed out for a while in the multiple eg exam (sitting, standing, lying) and by the time I came to, my reg doc was in charge, and apparently we had a fire truck and an ambulance there (I was informed the firemen were nice to look at... Alas lol).
So back to the ER and Ki was already racing down. Steve had taken me on Sunday, and Daniel took care of me on Monday, which really made things insanely helpful. Daniel walked out of the room and told the staff, that Ki is a dr and wants a head CT scan. After the scan we ran an MTI to confirm the tumors were melanoma and that's where we are...
My family is coming up on Friday Mom Sister and Brother), and we plan to start the process to move me up north. We really didn't expect anything like this, but it's just part of the deal. I've been feeling that I should be living with Ki anyhow, and our wonderful friends are offering to help. The open question now is if this is a speed bump or a quickening of symptoms. It's possible these 3 popped in my head back after the initial IL2 treatment and having an edema (bleeding) just is part of Mrlanoma. Well know more after radiation and the follow up later this month.
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