Today was a wearing sort of day. I didn’t do anything to strenuous, but I had another bad night of sleep (hey, five in a row!) and it’s pulling me down. Tonight’s a barbecue at a friend’s place, so I’m going to try to go unconscious for an hour or so.
Author: Brian
Sloth-brained
You know, I think if there’s one thing cancer teaches you, it’s how to be humble. I wound up having to leave work today because my energy was getting lower and lower and I was getting dumber and dumber.
I think, at least so far, there are two big parts to my newfound humility to get over.
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Holy Moly….
So I arrive home today to find a little envelope from St. Francis Hospital. You know, the place I was cooped up in for five days. This wasn’t a bill, as the little paper kept reiterating in bold type. This is just letting me know how much they’re trying to shake out of my insurance company. Are you ready for it? No seriously, are you ready for it?
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A Sublime Exsithtence
I have a Star Wars thought, but I wasn’t about to title this “Sith Happens,” for obvious reasons (you know, that I’m both cool and grumpy). So I’m in my boss’ office going over some networking stuff and he has his TV turned to MSNBC.
This is the part where I say that while I’m a big Star Wars fan, I don’t quite get the dressing up on every conceivable location thing. Part of that might be that I don’t suffer fools gladly. If I’m dressed up as Chewbacca, I’m going to go all interstellarly postal when the tenth person commands that I growl.
That’s not my thought, though.
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Squirrel Fur (A loooong post)
Okay, time to do some catching up here. Let’s see, yesterday the PET scan went well. The scanner was one of those they pull up in a trailer, rather than installed in the hospital. On the way into the trailer, up the sharp metal steps, the tech managed to knock himself right off the top step. He had reached the top and was trying to both open the door and move to the side to allow me through. His slip-on shoe hung in the stair’s teeth however, sending him swinging into the abyss hanging onto the door handle. Quite an amusing way to start the day, especially since he didn’t get hurt.
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Two more to go…
So today’s my PET/CT scan. This one’s to find out exactly where the Hodgkin’s is and how bad, as well as give us a baseline. You see, Hodgkin’s is tough to read once it starts dying because it leaves scar tissue behind. That means that even though it might be gone from a lymph node, in a CT scan it will still look like it’s got the cancer. The PET actually checks function, so it will actually tell us how much we’re kicking the cancer’s ass later on down the line. Yeehaw.
Sweeter than wine
No tests today – I get a break for the weekend. Well, except for the visiting nurse showing up this morning around 9:30. She took a good look at my incision and said that there were no stitches used, just a big steri-strip. I was starting to wonder when someone was going to be taking out the stitches I could see, but apparently I was looking at the scab of the incision. Dumbass.
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This is strange…
So, I haven’t taken my pain pills (Dilaudid – not nearly as good as my Lor-Tab babies) since yesterday morning, and the pain in my shoulder is gone. The only drugs I’m on are Naproxen Sodium (Generic CVS Aleve) and amazement. Either Aleve really kicks ass (Dear Aleve, I love your product. Well, not necessarily your product, but the generic brand since yours costs too damn much. Thank you, Brian) or something strange is happening with my spidey-sense. Current thinking here at the Whitney Street Brain Trust is that the lymph node under my arm seems to have stopped swelling, perhaps even has retreated a bit. This has probably caused it to stop pushing on some nerve that heretofore had me munching down pain pills like I was Paula Abdul.
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The History…
I guess I should get around to telling a little bit of my medical history so you guys know where I’m coming from. I’ve always been sick in some way, between allergies, asthma and migraines, not to mention the common childhood ailments. This was a new one on me, however.
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Lung Function Day!!
So today was the next baseline test – the Pulmonary Function Test. At least I think that’s what the “P” in “PFT” was – my mind fades at times.
Today as I was getting ready to go to the hospital I had my first… let’s say misgivings. I’m not up to fear just yet. I figure fear will come on the first treatment day when they insert the port and the chemo begins. For now, I’ll just call what I’m experiencing “misgivings”.
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