A Day In The Life Of A Cancer Patient

 Friday I had my 13th radiation treatment.  We are getting so close to half way.   I'm happy to report that I'm finally feeling some pain relief in my tailbone and spine.  In fact since Thursday I had only been taking 1 strong pain pill at night until today.  I've taken them all day today.  I'm not quite sure why I've been in pain today but I have.  The pain has improved significantly since starting radiation, which makes me hope and believe that the tumors are shrinking.

After radiation I had a doctors visit with Dr. Q and another one with Dr Dans NP, because there was a scheduling snafu.  My white count dropped from 4 to 2.5.  It hasn't been that low for several months.  The lower the white count, the more at risk I am of catching a bug.

It was then onto my infusion.  It's always a long day.  I'm just hoping that all of these treatments are killing the cancer cells.

Every time I have radiation they have an xray of my pelvis on the screen.  There is an area on the right iliac crest (pelvis) that I questioned Dr. Q about.  The radiologist never mentioned it on the CT scans, even though when we looked at the last CT it was there.  Dr. Q talked with the radiologist who said this is a tumor.  He feels that it is a soft tissue ovarian tumor that is calcified from treatment.  Thankfully it is calcified and thankfully it doesn't hurt.  Funny that my left hip still hurts sometimes from what I hope and think is bursitis.

Tuesday-Thursday of last week I was sick, sick, sick.  It was bad and I felt horrible.  I had some crazy abdominal cramping that would come and go every few minutes and only lasted seconds, but it was so painful.  I've had some pretty bad nausea, especially in the mornings and after radiation.  Thankfully I also have zofran which seems to minimize it.  I've spent way too much time in the restroom too.  I'll leave it at that...GRRRR.  I pretty much have been on the couch for far too many hours of the day.  I'm super tired, not necessarily sleepy, just tired.  My appetite is still down and I feel weak with very minimal energy.  I remember when Dr. Q told me my energy level would go down, I was going to prove her wrong.  Yea, she was right.  I'm grateful for prayers that were answered during the worst of the pain.  I may have said at one point through tears that I didn't know if I could keep fighting.  I might go far enough to say that the side effects from radiation are worse than chemo.

The crazy thing is that the last 2 Friday's I have I felt pretty good.  The radiology techs told me that they see a lot of patients feel better on Fridays.  There is no rime or reason for it.

This week I only have 4 treatments since I'm going home to Phoenix for a few days.  Hooray!