Love, hope, joy are powerful healers.
This afternoon I had my weekly follow-up appointment with my oncologist. My mouth sores have increased and are very painful. Also, I’ve lost 7 pounds in the past week because it has been difficult to eat with the painful mouth sores.
So the doctor admitted me to Vanderbilt University Hospital to deal with the pain and the lost weight.
Since Monday was a holiday, my chemotherapy appointment was moved to early Tuesday morning followed by radiation treatment in the afternoon. Dr. Barbara, my oncologist, does not have clinic hours on Tuesday’s so I did not see her today. Blood work first, then directly to the oncology lab for my chemo. My white blood cell count was down to 3.8 this week, which is just below the “normal” range low of 4.0. But not low enough to prevent me from receiving my chemo treatment.
These chemo treatments don’t take a long as the previous chemotherapy regimen of 3 chemo drugs. We were home my noon. After lunch, I worked for a couple of hours before leaving for my radiation treatment at 3:00pm. After the treatment, we met with the radiation oncologist. My mouth is looking good – no mouth sores – but my tongue has a white coating. The doctor suggested rinsing with aloe vera juice. Swallowing is fine and I’m eating solid foods without any difficulty.
Feeling fine. Continuing to work. Thanks for all your prayers!
It’s a good thing Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center has multiple radiation machines at multiple locations within the Nashville area. The radiation machine at the Franklin clinic was “down” on Thursday and Friday, so I was re-scheduled to receive treatment at the downtown clinic. Since I am on “vacation” this week, it did not matter what time I received treatment, so I selected a morning option to avoid the afternoon traffic from downtown.
They are still working to get the downtown clinic fully repaired from the flood in May. Treatment rooms are completed, but many offices are not yet finished.
No problems with the treatment. Everything went smoothly, although they don’t have music at the downtown clinic. The Franklin clinic will play the radio or one of their CD selections – your request. I’ve found that piano instrumental music helps me to relax and reduce my “mask anxiety” so I request that CD.
Today was my third radiation treatment, and I’m at the Vanderbilt Clinic downtown. I did take a xanax to reduce my anxiety with the mask. As I explained in a earlier post, on Monday I had an “anxiety attack” from claustrophobia when they put on the mask over my head and shoulder. Today my anxiety was much less. Because we were on a different machine, they had to take additional x-rays and measurements, so it was another 30-minute session with my mask.
Deep breathing, visualizing myself relaxing on the beach, and thinking positive affirmations (along with the xanax) helped me get through the treatment just fine. I think I will forgo the xanax medication next week, as my mask is becoming my friend 🙂
I’m grateful that I’m still feeling fine, eating regular foods, and maintaining my weight, actually I gained a couple of pounds this week. If I don’t push myself too much and get plenty of sleep, fatigue is not much of a concern.
Unfortunately, my radiation treatment was canceled at the last minute because the radiation machine was not working. The explanation we received was that if anything is not working properly on the machine, it automatically shuts down and will not function again until the problem is fixed. Fortunately, before we left the house, I called to see if the treatments were “on schedule” since they were about an hour late the day before. That’s when we were told my treatment would be canceled today.
Oh well, that adds one more day at the end of my treatments, which will now end on August 9.
Later in the evening, we received word that my treatment on Friday would be at the Vanderbilt Clinic in downtown Nashville because the one-and-only radiation machine at the Franklin clinic would not be functioning on Friday since they were waiting on replacement parts.
Feeling good. No side effects. Still working.