A Minor Setback

Happy Sunday everyone. This week sure has been a crazy one! B and I certainly enjoyed the long holiday weekend but were confronted with an unexpected turn of events come Monday night.

As most of you know, it's been very hot here in Boston with tons of humidity so I thought my shortness of breath and overall fatigue could be blamed on the weather - not my own shortcomings... but of course this notion was too good to be true when I tried to walk up our stairs and was so badly out of breath I was huffing like a character out of Red Riding Hood.

As you can imagine this did not sit so well with B or me so I gave in and paged Dr. L where she proceeded to tell me that I was to come in the next morning for them to take a listen to my lungs, give me some medicine and then send me home.  HOW NAIVE I WAS.  I go in Tuesday morning and as my oxygen levels held pretty solid in the 80s (normal is high 90s/100s) they admitted me to the hospital!  And people wonder why I have a paranoia about going to the doctor these days -- they say one thing and mean the other.

Apparently I have what is called pneumonitis which is an inflammation of the lungs caused by all the chemo I have gotten. This can be treated with lots and lots of steroids which is amazing -- nothing better than weight gain, fat pads and holes in your stomach (just a few of the side effects).  While the steroids aren't ideal they do seem to be working, I am able to breathe outside as long as it isn't super humid and can successfully go up and down the stairs again.

While in the hospital I did have my four+ hour long appointment with the radiation oncologist that yielded a nice break from my hospital-provided-prison-cell and four new tattoos! While these tattoos are indeed permanent (I know, I never thought I would get one either) they are super super tiny and are barely noticeable.  Three of the four right now are almost invisible, but the one under my right arm is a bit bruised (at least that's what I am hoping).  While I traded in the experience of an artist named Slash for a Cat Scan table and a lady called Jean, I am officially inked everyone.

These new blue freckles will be the markers that the radiation people will use to line my body up on the table every day when I go in for radiation. They claim it is the most efficient method especially since the body size can change with the treatments (let's hope they mean smaller...)

I guess I should also take a step back and mention that Dr. M, the radiation oncologist, does think that the radiation is totally needed to help eradicate this disease entirely.  My radiation field will likely be from the bottom of my esophagus to the bottom of my ribs, including the underarm area. This is certainly a big area that does propose a few inherent risks - obviously throat irritation from the radiation, heart and lung exposure (which will be prevented as best as possible with shields) and breast exposure. The breast exposure puts me at a heightened risk for breast cancer beginning 10 to 30 years from now - ugh right?!

All in all though, I have to take a step back and realize that this will likely cure me of Cancer now and that if I'm afraid of the future I'm likely going to miss something really important that is happening right now. So, I've decided to take this risk. To jump feet first into the unknown.

So today's another journey. Hopefully I can keep myself out of the hospital and enjoy my first day of "takeout" (and by takeout I mean sitting outside on a patio...)