One week ago today I had my 10th round of chemo – Cisplatin/Doxorubicin. Cisplatin is the rough guy that enjoys knocking me on my ass. It’s hard to avoid feeling ill during and after the drug. If there’s one thing they encourage, it’s LOTS of liquids to flush the drugs out of your system. Sounds easy but it’s not when everything you place into your mouth (including water) makes you want to throw up. Knowing this, we asked if we could take my IV bag buddy “Fred” home for 2 extra days of hydration. You can bring him home as long as there is someone that is willing to pull the needles out after you’re done. My mom shrieks and flails her arms in the air at the thought of it, but luckily my sister has just finished nursing school! How convenient. So we brought Fred home and Michelle came by to yank the needle (thanks Shell). I think the extra hydration helped a little, but I can’t lie – I still feel like garbage. I feel like there are a ton of books on my chest, when i walk it's hard to breathe. I've had this in the past, it's a side effect of the chemo.
This morning I had to go to my local primary care doctor to see how my blood counts are doing. The results came back very low, as expected. However the thing to look out for is a fever, so far I’ve managed to get a fever each time after having Cisplatin; which means you have to be admitted to the hospital and hooked up to antibiotics and fluids. So far so good, fingers crossed.
A few weeks ago they removed my makeshift “cast” and replaced it with some other contraption. That’s really the best way to describe it: a contraption. It’s this (hard) plastic white arm gear that snaps together over your upper arm, then there’s this sweet velcro piece that comes over my shoulder, up across my chest, and sticks together on the other side of my neck. It almost resembles protective football gear. Versace watch out.
I kid. I know it’s not meant to be fashionable. At first it was really uncomfortable but now I’ve gotten used to it. I no longer wear the sling so I am forced to use my arm a bit more, which is a good thing. If you don’t use your muscles for a long time your body simply forgets how to use them. It’s really scary – it happened to me. After the new gear was placed my surgeon told me to try and move my lower arm up and down a few times a day to keep the muscle active. I went home and tried. No dice. It just wouldn’t move, pure dead weight. It wasn’t even that it hurt it just did not want to move. But days have passed and I can now move it again little by little…phew.
Well originally my surgery should have been completed by now. It was scheduled for July 25th but the break has since shifted everything around.
Saw my surgeon again before leaving on Friday to discuss my arms progress. Dr. Athanasian is such a character. He is quiet but has so much presence. When he walks into the room you automatically feel the need to fix your posture and shake his hand. Our visit was pretty short this time, he looked at a new xray of my arm and reiterated how wonderfully the tumor is reacting to the chemo. He looked at the break as well, but is not as happy with the progress of that. It’s healing, but very slowly. I knew this, because when I would get up from sitting I could hear and feel the bones shift. The thought of it makes me nauseous – what else is new. So he decided to give my bones some more time to heal, and to do some more chemo in the meantime. Sounds like a plan to me. The key is to not break anything else during the surgery. The more bone that breaks, the greater chance there is of cancerous cells spreading – we do not want that. He also mentioned that in one of my next visits I will be meeting with the plastic surgeon as well. I’ll explain the surgery in detail in another posting, but here I will just say that it is intense and the room will be filled with loads of surgeons. The estimated time of my surgery is 10 – 12 hours. I’m still in shock about that one. Depending on my progress, my surgery will either be the last week of August, or the first week of September.
Ah, we did have another encounter with the infamous Dipsy Doodle. This time she had wandered over to the out-patient side. She wheeled her blood pressure machine over to us, big dopey eyes all lit up with an open smile, “HEY!! What are you guys doing here!?”…hmm well…
Anyway, overall I’m doing well. A little bored and a little house trapped – but otherwise ok! Once I’m feeling better some of you guys should come watch movies with me.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Hiatus
I feel like I am constantly being tested, like there is some bigger force laughing at me and throwing hardballs at my face.
Two weekends ago Josh and I took a trip to Albany so that he could sign his lease. He’ll be going to Albany Law starting in August and so I wanted to see his place and the town that he’ll be living in. It was a gorgeous day and drive. We pull up to the house, park, I get out of the car, turn around, and close the car door with my right arm…
…SNAP! I feel the bones in my arm glide past each other and settle themselves into an awful place. The sensation I felt is one I can’t even explain, I didn’t see stars but I froze for a while and knew right away what had happened and began screaming to Josh. By the time the paramedics came I was sobbing and shaking. And not so much because of the pain but because of what my surgeon told me in my consultation; “Whatever you do, do NOT break this arm or it will make it very difficult to save through surgery. “ His words just kept on spinning and spinning around in my head as they pumped me up with morphine and a stranger was rubbing my back.
They took me to the hospital and then they had me transported to Sloan. Being that far away from home in a hospital that doesn’t really know Oncology or my case had me pretty frustrated with everyone that handled me. “Oh its just a broken arm don’t worry we’ll cast you right up.” No, you don’t understand…
My surgeon came by my hospital bed the next morning to talk to me. He told me news that made me sick to my stomach. He explained that I broke my arm right across the tumor, which means that cancer cells are free to roam about my body and that I now have a greater chance of the cancer returning after my full surgery and treatment. He also told me that he will still try and save my arm but now there is a greater chance that it may not be successful and that amputation could become more of a possibility.
I lost it.
My Oncologist heard that I was having a hard time with the news and came by to comfort me. He told me to calm down because the case described by my surgeon is more likely for someone that hasn’t gone through chemo yet. I’d had 7 rounds of chemo at the time this happened. Some people even discover that they have Osteosarcoma by doing simple things like reaching up to put dishes away which results in a break. The bone on/near the tumor just becomes so brittle.
I will lighten this up a little…
I had a full round of tests done in prep for my surgery. This is routine to see how your tumor is reacting to chemo, and also to see if the cancer has spread. They do x-rays, a chest scan, and a full bone scan. The bone scan is the most telling for my condition since I have bone cancer. The wait for the results of these scans are pure hell.
Yesterday I met up with my surgeon again. He has a special office where he meets with patients. There are only a few chairs, awkward lighting, and a computer on his desk with a stack of dusty magazines that I would bet haven’t been read in years. The wait was all too quiet and I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest.
He came in, “Hey stranger!” and shook my hand. He sat down with his assistant and said “I have good news”, and smiled. My heart fell back into my chest. He said my bone scan was clean and that he is so happy with the progress of my arm. The tumor has shrunk even more and this will make the surgery so much easier to perform. He mentioned that even though I have a break, he is very positive and is confident that he should be able to work around the break. The only somewhat negative is that I am pretty much on house arrest until and after the surgery. I can deal with that. Also I have a nodule in my lungs that we are still uncertain of. They saw this early on too, but even “normal” people get nodules on their lungs that are absolutely nothing. He said he is not too concerned with that right now, but that we will look at it closer after my arm surgery.
Mom, dad and I left his office with color in our cheeks.
Lots of crazy things went on in the hospital for the 11 days that we were there, but the most memorable is from a woman we’ve named Dipsy-doodle. They have people that come in every few hours to check your vitals while you’re in-patient. They wake you up in the middle of the night with no shame to poke your ear with a thermometer, put that odd clipper on your finger to measure your oxygen level, and take your blood pressure. They had to take my blood pressure on my leg rather than my arm because both are out of commission. The right being broken and the left with huge bruises, swollen & sore, and a scary Amazon-rainforest-looking rash from my veins being infiltrated by the IV’s being left in too long. The crease of my arm is so bruised and punctured – I resemble a heroin addict.
Back to Dipsy-doodle…
DD: [Places the blood pressure thing around my leg] “WOW!!! You have the smoothest legs! They are so soft. What razor do you use??
Me: [stares at her quietly]: I don’t shave.
DD: [Eyes widen] Oh where do you get them waxed?
Me: I don’t.
DD: [“thinks” some more] Oh, laser hair removal?
Me: [Pause. Deep breath.] CHEMOTHERAPY.
DD: [Smacks her head] OHHH hehe.
Pardon my French but what a fucking dolt. You work at a cancer hospital, are you serious?
I couldn't help but share this with my nurses. I didn't know her name but they knew exactly who I was talking about right away and were cracking up. There are more incidents with her but this was the best.
Anyway, keep throwing hardballs at my face. I’ve got a big ‘ol mitt.
Two weekends ago Josh and I took a trip to Albany so that he could sign his lease. He’ll be going to Albany Law starting in August and so I wanted to see his place and the town that he’ll be living in. It was a gorgeous day and drive. We pull up to the house, park, I get out of the car, turn around, and close the car door with my right arm…
…SNAP! I feel the bones in my arm glide past each other and settle themselves into an awful place. The sensation I felt is one I can’t even explain, I didn’t see stars but I froze for a while and knew right away what had happened and began screaming to Josh. By the time the paramedics came I was sobbing and shaking. And not so much because of the pain but because of what my surgeon told me in my consultation; “Whatever you do, do NOT break this arm or it will make it very difficult to save through surgery. “ His words just kept on spinning and spinning around in my head as they pumped me up with morphine and a stranger was rubbing my back.
They took me to the hospital and then they had me transported to Sloan. Being that far away from home in a hospital that doesn’t really know Oncology or my case had me pretty frustrated with everyone that handled me. “Oh its just a broken arm don’t worry we’ll cast you right up.” No, you don’t understand…
My surgeon came by my hospital bed the next morning to talk to me. He told me news that made me sick to my stomach. He explained that I broke my arm right across the tumor, which means that cancer cells are free to roam about my body and that I now have a greater chance of the cancer returning after my full surgery and treatment. He also told me that he will still try and save my arm but now there is a greater chance that it may not be successful and that amputation could become more of a possibility.
I lost it.
My Oncologist heard that I was having a hard time with the news and came by to comfort me. He told me to calm down because the case described by my surgeon is more likely for someone that hasn’t gone through chemo yet. I’d had 7 rounds of chemo at the time this happened. Some people even discover that they have Osteosarcoma by doing simple things like reaching up to put dishes away which results in a break. The bone on/near the tumor just becomes so brittle.
I will lighten this up a little…
I had a full round of tests done in prep for my surgery. This is routine to see how your tumor is reacting to chemo, and also to see if the cancer has spread. They do x-rays, a chest scan, and a full bone scan. The bone scan is the most telling for my condition since I have bone cancer. The wait for the results of these scans are pure hell.
Yesterday I met up with my surgeon again. He has a special office where he meets with patients. There are only a few chairs, awkward lighting, and a computer on his desk with a stack of dusty magazines that I would bet haven’t been read in years. The wait was all too quiet and I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest.
He came in, “Hey stranger!” and shook my hand. He sat down with his assistant and said “I have good news”, and smiled. My heart fell back into my chest. He said my bone scan was clean and that he is so happy with the progress of my arm. The tumor has shrunk even more and this will make the surgery so much easier to perform. He mentioned that even though I have a break, he is very positive and is confident that he should be able to work around the break. The only somewhat negative is that I am pretty much on house arrest until and after the surgery. I can deal with that. Also I have a nodule in my lungs that we are still uncertain of. They saw this early on too, but even “normal” people get nodules on their lungs that are absolutely nothing. He said he is not too concerned with that right now, but that we will look at it closer after my arm surgery.
Mom, dad and I left his office with color in our cheeks.
Lots of crazy things went on in the hospital for the 11 days that we were there, but the most memorable is from a woman we’ve named Dipsy-doodle. They have people that come in every few hours to check your vitals while you’re in-patient. They wake you up in the middle of the night with no shame to poke your ear with a thermometer, put that odd clipper on your finger to measure your oxygen level, and take your blood pressure. They had to take my blood pressure on my leg rather than my arm because both are out of commission. The right being broken and the left with huge bruises, swollen & sore, and a scary Amazon-rainforest-looking rash from my veins being infiltrated by the IV’s being left in too long. The crease of my arm is so bruised and punctured – I resemble a heroin addict.
Back to Dipsy-doodle…
DD: [Places the blood pressure thing around my leg] “WOW!!! You have the smoothest legs! They are so soft. What razor do you use??
Me: [stares at her quietly]: I don’t shave.
DD: [Eyes widen] Oh where do you get them waxed?
Me: I don’t.
DD: [“thinks” some more] Oh, laser hair removal?
Me: [Pause. Deep breath.] CHEMOTHERAPY.
DD: [Smacks her head] OHHH hehe.
Pardon my French but what a fucking dolt. You work at a cancer hospital, are you serious?
I couldn't help but share this with my nurses. I didn't know her name but they knew exactly who I was talking about right away and were cracking up. There are more incidents with her but this was the best.
Anyway, keep throwing hardballs at my face. I’ve got a big ‘ol mitt.
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