Radiation Adventure

The spine is an amazing part of our body. Mine has some holes in it. Holes called lytic lesions or lytic tumors. Because of these cool holes, my back feels sore pretty much all of the time. The largest tumors are in the thoracic area (upper back).

Every time I go to see my oncologist or get an infusion I am asked if I am in any pain. For a long time, I said “no” because I didn’t want their solution to the problem. Finally, it got bad enough I said, “yes,” and their solution was radiation. See, I knew I didn’t want it.

This last week was radiation week. Radiation to stop pain, and to stop the tumors from growing into the spinal cord (I guess that’s a bad thing). The neat thing about radiation is that it goes right on through your body. The spine just happens to be in line with other important parts of our body, like the esophagus, stomach, lungs, and abdominal muscles. Small things like that. Therefore, the feelings of nausea, weakness, headache, bone ache and dizziness were not too surprising. It just would have been nice to be forewarned that they would happen.

It’s hard for me to ask for help, but I had some amazing people step in and help when I needed it. Thank you.

So, after the radiation is done I get to go back onto the newest chemotherapy thus far. It’s oral. I take it in pill form at home. I know, it sounds strange. I have to keep it sequestered away from other people and food and in a zip lock bag so others don’t come into contact with it. For the first time since I began this whole chemotherapy thing I may need the anti-nausea drugs they gave me. That will be fun, because while they prevent one from vomiting, they sure make the person taking them feel strange and ill in other ways.

Off to new treatments and new things to learn!

A Happy Memory

As I sat in a waiting room today I had a memory of an event that occurred about one year ago in that same waiting room. I had driven up to Huntsman for a “radiation planning session” where they do the set up for radiation. Huntsman Cancer Institute is located at the top of the University of Utah campus. Once I enter the campus, it takes about 5-10 minutes to get up to the hospital. But that day the normally 5-minute drive took about 45 minutes. The cause was some roadwork going on right outside The University of Utah Hospital, which is just below Huntsman. Everyone was late. Employees were late to shifts at the hospital. Patients were late to appointments. Therefore, there were about eight women in the waiting room, when usually there are two or three. We all sat in our hospital gowns waiting. Doctors came in and apologized for the wait. So, some of us started chatting.

Me: I think they should give us our own hospital gowns to have at home. That way we can just wear them here and not have to change. It would save time.

Woman #1: And then we could personalize them. We could choose our own colors.

Woman #2: It would also save on locker space.

Woman #3: The only problem would be if we got pulled over while we were driving. The officer would be like, ‘where did you escape from?’ And we’d look the part.

Women #2: And we wouldn’t even have a bra on!

It was a happy memory.