Here I am again

After the urination issue and the fact that I still needed some sort of allergy medication, I contacted Dr. K's office for help on Wednesday. When I didn't hear anything back, I called again on Thursday and was informed that she wanted to see me early Friday morning. Upon seeing me (8 days after my last appointment), listening to my racing heartrate and hearing that my breathing was a bit short, she decided I needed emergency radiation to the chest tumor because she believes the SVC (superior vena cava) was being further compressed. Soooo, she admitted me to the hospital once again, failing to mention my urination problem to anyone.

I told everyone about that problem but no one took it seriously until Friday night at midnight when I hadn't urinated for 12 hours. They catheterized me for two days, and so far things are running along much more smoothly. One problem possibly resolved.

When I was finally taken up to radiation, they did a scan and then spent the afternoon making their plan. I was supposed to have my first treatment at 5:30 pm, but didn't until 8:15. Then I was taken to my room. Poor Ed -- a very long day for him and then he had to drive back home whereas I could just go to bed.

I had another treatment at 6:30 pm Saturday and was supposed to be released on Sunday, but they screwed everything up and I spent another night. Yesterday, my treatment was supposed to be at 11:30 and then we were going to head home. Without telling us, they moved my appointment to 2:30 and Ed had to leave before I actually received treatment at 3 p.m. We're going to try again today. My treatment is scheduled for 11:30 but they are going to try to fit me in earlier and are going to try to schedule the rest of my appointments for 9 a.m.

I was originally going to have a total of five treatments, but they changed their minds and now I'll have nine -- two at a higher dose, and seven at a lower dose. They believe this will be more effective than five at the same high dose. I haven't met the radiation oncologist who is overseeing this treatment, but I hope to today to find out exactly what happened to make that change.

The on-call sarcoma doctor over the weekend and one of his assistants ordered Flonase for my allergies. They determined that it would not make me retain water (believe it or not, a lot of medications can do that). I've been taking it for two days now and it seems to help a bit. Perhaps a second problem resolved.

So that's why I've been out of touch once again. I hope to be home tonight but the fatigue is already starting to kick in, so don't expect too much in the way of updates over the next week or so. I'll do my best and thank you, as always, for keeping me in your thoughts.