Got Some Cheese to go with a Whine?

Nope, not in the hospital, quiet opposite, out and on short term disability, and losing my mind.

The last two days have been a bit rough, along with a day a couple weeks ago, not physically but emotionally.

To understand you have to back up to the last time I was in the hospital, I went in on April 7^th, and got out on April 13^th, one day short of a week.  I was in bad shape when I went in, I mean bad shape.

My system basically crashed.  I wasn’t producing white cells, platelets; I think there was a problem with the red ones too.  Not to mention the potassium levels were really super low.  (Potassium is needed to regulate the heart.) And they discovered an, crap what do they call it, it isn’t inception, something like interception I think, and it is spelled wrong, basically it is when the intestine decides to fold in on itself like a water balloon.  Not a good thing, is painful and if it blocks can cause problems with the intestine, like if the blood flow is cut off from being blocked, it can kill the small intestine.  The surgeon made sure he explained that to me, but they couldn’t do surgery because of my blood levels. (No they didn’t do surgery I still am walking around with it and feeling every bit of food pass through, not fun let me tell you.)

Well, while I was in the hospital I was scheduled for radiation, and normally they would have had a medical transport pick me up and take me to my radiation appointment, but since my blood levels were so bad, they couldn’t risk the radiation making it worse or me being out amongst the “normal” population.

I was in the “step down unit”, isolation room.  Step down from ICU.  When patients are released from ICU they go to the step down unit before they go to a regular room.  (Nope never made it to a regular room.)

Fast forward to April 18^th, still feel pretty rough, but I am out of the hospital and have an appointment with my oncologist to have blood work done and I get to ask about this intestine thing. 

Blood levels are going up, not normal yet but getting there.  I talk with my doctor and when I left I was under the impression that I wouldn’t have to finish radiation and since the intestine thing was present that put the abdominal surgery first, and soon. 

Well I was wrong.  I had to finish radiation, another six days of it.   I know you are thinking that six days isn’t much.  But you have to understand that radiation continues to work for 10 days after you are done, plus they allow time to let your body normalize so you heal better.  Radiation interferes with healing. So rather than within two weeks getting surgery having the tumor taken out of my abdomen and having my intestine fixed so it doesn’t hurt when every little think passes through, I am looking at four minimum.

I was depressed the day they gave me that news.

Fast forward to yesterday.  I had my appointment with the oncology surgeon.  The doctor who is going to be taking the tumor out of my abdomen and fixing the intestine.  I was really hoping to hear that they were going to do surgery within a week because of the intestine thing.  But no.  He isn’t worried about it as long as things are passing through, painful as it may be.  He is more worried about if he goes in before they address the tumor in my lung which is pressing against the heart, and is wrapped around the main artery that comes from the heart into the lung. 

If they go after the abdomen first and something happens, the tumor in the lung pressing against the heart can interfere with my life being saved.  Ok I can understand that, but I am still disappointed.

Now I have to wait till next week and talk to the Thoracic Surgeon who hopefully will give me a date for surgery that isn’t two or three weeks out.

It boils down to this, I am tired of not being normal for me, tell me I’ll go through pain but when it is over my life will be my life again, and I’ll do it.  I am tired. 

I am tired of feeling run down, not wanting to eat because it will ultimately cause pain and interrupt my sleep, I am tired of not getting a full night sleep, and I am tired of food tasting like yuck.  I can’t taste salty and I can barely taste sweet.

Fritos are really salty, so are Doritos, and Cheetos.  I don’t taste a bit of salt when I eat them.  I barely got a grape sweet taste from grape jelly.  I just want to be able to taste food and have it be normal.

From my point of view things are going nowhere fast; I don’t see the end of the journey.  All I know is I am tired and I want to see things progress. 

Yes I know they are, but at times it seems that all I do is wait for something.  Wait for the chemo to take effect or put me in the hospital.  Wait for the radiation.  Get put into the hospital, get out of the hospital.  With all of that going on, I feel like I am stuck in neutral.  Still got those tumors.  The one in the abdomen shrunk, but I still have it.  I feel like if things were going somewhere I’d be at least recovering from a surgery by now.  Frustrating is what it is.

Frustrated is what I am.  Mainly because I feel like I am standing still while everything passes me by.

I’m done whining.  It doesn’t do any good.  Hopefully soon I'll be posting some nasty pics of the tumors.