Hurdles

Praise The LORD for He's gotten me over the first hurdle in this cancer journey!  Yesterday's tandem ovoid (aka brachytherapy) is hopefully the last one I'll ever need.  As of 4:23 PM October 19th, 2009, exactly 2 months to the date I first had cancer treatment, yesterday was the final cancer treatment I'll hopefully need for the remainder of my life!  Dr. B says he cannot even see my monster on the CT scan, however he did caution me that until 3 months goes by I can't have another PET scan (where I am injected with radioactive idodine) to see if any monster cells are still lurking somewhere.  Unless something negative occurs with my health I do not see Dr. B again until Nov. 13th for a check up.

The procedure went very well and what made it even better is that I also was infused with 2 more units of blood (that makes 13 transfusions since July 28th, 2009)  The hard part was having to be repeatedly needle stuck, 6 times, in order to draw blood and have an IV line for my 'tasty Ringer's Lactate and to inject medicines.  One line actually held for about 3 hours before the vein collapsed and in the end they finally got an injection specialist to put a new line in. I've got quite a few large puncture bruises which are even swollen so I'll be  watching those for infections.

My next three goals are to get therapeutic massage for my legs/feet/toes as relates to the lymphedema, begin the process to have my teeth replaced and start to rebuild my strength.  The radiation will continue to be a side effect feature in my body functions for at least another 8 weeks so rebuilding my strength will need to be done in small doses and until the lymphedema is addressed the small doses may need to be even smaller. These are cancer treatment side effects and with God's help I'll get them worked through.  I'm also hoping that my blood counts now become stable so my spleen stops hurting, my skin begins to retain moisture again,  I stop losing my hair and my energy level begins to improve.  There's so much more to cancer than the monster itself; remember, mine was contained and I had all these other effects to deal with, imagine how it must be for others stricken with cancer which has spread!!

Last night I was in bed by 6:15 PM as I was just exhausted and in quite a bit of post-op pain.  This morning I'm still not up to par but I do feel more rested and less pained.  It's gonna be a quiet day for me.  At 8 AM I'll get hold of my other oncologist, Dr. C about the massage therapy and then a few numbers pertaining to dental care.  gotta get to the store for more milk and benadryl (for the serious rashes I've got as a result of low blood levels); I may need mittens to keep from scratching myself, too.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.