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for the completionists, and the ones who have hodgkins who will come later who will want to know all...About a week out of treatment weird skin things started to happen. Not just one, or two, but three things at the same time. I got this weird rash on my wrist that went away, then came back, then went away again in the space of two weeks. During this time a strange grouping of red dots appeared just below my left sideburn (at first i thought i had cut myself shaving, but it was in fact a skin 'happening'). And to top it all off (literally) my scalp started going nuts with itching... Since this is the year of strange medicine for me, I figured i would play it safe and see the dermatologist before this devolved into another year of chemo (and another blog). Luckily all was well, by the time I got there the rashes had gone down and the scalp healed itself (with the help of some tea tree oil). The doctor explained that much like a cold sore virus that lays dormant for years only to rear its ugly head, little things that the chemo and radiation had repressed were coming out of the woodwork that is my skin. As I had seen they would soon run their course and soon (hopefully) I will be skin-ailment free.just so you know! thanks to all for the well wishes, flowers and the surprise party... you are so very kind
yee-haw! it is over... the treatment that is. radio and chemo, done. now i just go in for a few follow ups and they will PET scan me every six months for the next five years to make sure its not relapsing. but for now its over, which is nice. thank you all for your well wishes and thoughts. they let me keep my face mask from radiation, which you see abovebe wellj
and then some time passed Notes On Radiation-
-5 days a week I rise at 6am to be at the hospital at 730 am. This earliness allows me to get treated before the rush and to get to work on the prior rather than latter side of normal business hours. If i miss this window and have to go during the day it's around an hour wait plus. The way i have it set up now I get into work around 815.
-of course this would mean going to sleep at 10 if you wanted a solid eight, but that doesn't really happen. So while they said that fatigue would occur as a result of the radiation, i can't really tell if its because of that or just because of only getting six hours of sleep a night
-actually i've survived on a lot less then six hours a night, so i guess it must be the radioactive lasers beams they are shooting me with. -so you get into the treatment center and head for the basement where they keep the radiation machines
-you remove the garments and put on a robe -they lie you on a table and secure you; in my case they have made a mask for my face so my neck (which is receiving treatment) doesn't move during laser time.
-after they align me (thanks to the small tattoos they gave me) they flip the switch and deep inside the machine the radiation is created.
-it shoots out at me for about 10 seconds. there is a small lead device that changes its shape depending on what they are trying to hit. this has the effect of blocking the rays from hitting vital organs such as the heart and the lungs.
-it then rotates and hits me from the back
- so you don't freak out when you are strapped into the machine someone has pasted a picture of a puppy next to a kitteh on the arm of the machine above you. when it rotates around then there is a giant mural of a blue sky and green tree branches. very relaxing, but not as fancy as the original room they had me in which had illuminated cherry blossoms on the ceiling. - when they turn on the laser beams there is a distinct smell of electric oxygen and sulfur. this smell sometimes sneaks up on me during the day but can be banished with thought and perhaps a cookie
-quick and painless while being zapped-usually i lapse into an absence of thought like sleep
-a few days after it starts you start to notice your suntan in the spots where it hits you. you also notice a little bit of being tired. -its never really bad, but its never really good. on an average day i feel about 64 out of a 100. kinda like it's always 545 and you're about to leave work. all day long.-its more of a general malaise than any type of nausea
-but hey its short, and in two days it will be done
-and then maybe my diamond-pyramid-sunburn will go away
hiso its overi finished chemo 11 and 12they were pretty normal as the last few went... a few days of feeling bad and then a general upswing until the next session knocked me back againbut that's all over now. siobhan made this lime flavored cupcake in celebration and ate it. hmm. hodgkins never tasted so good.so now the thing left in the air is what to do about radiation. Since the beginning the consensus was (according to all the doctors) that radiation was necessary since the cancer was detected at stage 2. since i have been doing so well now they are saying that maybe, if the cancer is gone in the PET scan, then i won't have to do radiation. which is nice, b/c that means i will be able to not spend 2 hours a day waiting for treatment for 3 weeks. and i won't become even more irradiated than i am now.so tomorrow (tues) i go in for another PET scan, and then armed with that info (and all the rest of the info i have generated up to this point) i can go around to the host of cancer doctors who have offered opinions (first and second) and find out the best thing to do.thanks to all who have helped me thru this, you made it easier for sure. i will update in a few days when i know what is happening.
So prom this year was fun, as you can see we got a corsage/boutonniere for one another and it all worked out. This is Siobhan and I doing our best prom stance. I remember this year as more fun than last - perhaps because of the impending gradation? Regardless it was as Siobhan put it "like being at a wedding with no bride and groom". The food was OK, they kept a tight grip on the liquor (even running out of the 'free' drinks quite early) and the DJ kept it dialed in on the same top 40 BS they play on almost every radio station everywhere (when are we, as a collective culture, going to decide that it's OK to listen to new music and that the same 150 classic rock songs don't need to be on constant repeat everywhere 40 years after they were recorded?) Regardless it was fun and there was dancing (both ironic and not) and i will say we had a good time.Chemo 9 and 10 went as normal, i am in the grips of 10 now and will say that i am excited that there are only 2 left. Everything was pretty normal for 9, with the exception of the realization that the drugs were starting to get to me psychologically as well as physically. They call this "chemobrain" , and i hadn't heard the term before session 9 when i overheard it three times in one day at the center. The general feelings are forgetfulness, confusion as to how to proceed in everyday activities, or a general dazed feeling. These are some strong drugs they are giving us and they do have more than the intended effects. The ones that i keep experiencing beyond the above are what i like to call little mind and big mind. Little mind is when i close my eyes and i get the feeling that parts of my body (specifically my hand) is about 20 times bigger than normal - the hand is as big as the rest of my body. Like if stick your hand right up to your eye, and imagine being microscopically close so you can see all the indentations and crevices and paths. It feels like my mind is tiny and swimming in a vast skull. The feeling doesn't hurt and usually goes away when i open my eyes a bit, and is usually only experienced in the first week after chemo, but there it is for everyone keeping score.While i have been feeling "little brain" for a while i just recently started feeling the opposite last weekend - big brain. Same deal but the opposite - when i close my eyes i get the feeling that my body is as tiny as a fetus, while my brain as large as normal. Everything on my body feels distant and tiny. Again, just something i experienced while taking one of several naps on the couch, nothing too serious but something to consider in regards to how toxic the stuff they are putting in my is.Speaking of which, some gory news - skip this if you are squeamish- i asked the nurse why they wipe off the port after each push ( the port is this thing they put in me each time i go to the hospital so they don't have to stick me 7 times) and she said that some of the stuff they put inside me can BURN AWAY SKIN ON CONTACT... whoa. No wonder i feel so good! I have super skin burning acid in me! I just remembered i forgot to go get my shot today, i will have to leave you with that so i can run up there before they close...
