Not Cancer

by on April 24, 2022 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

So, I pulled a muscle today. Was doing one thing, and a totally different muscle in my chest gave way. My first thought was, “Thank God it’s just a muscle.” It had been hurting all day and I was starting to wonder if it was serious. My second thought was “Oh God it hurts.” Not kidding. On a scale of 0 to 5 broken ribs, this hurt more. It was agony. It was nearing “man with cold” on the universe ending scale. It hurt to breathe. It hurt not to breathe. It hurt to move. It hurt not to move. My life was one unending spectrum of hurt. Now my mom has some pain pills right now. Including one that is “take one for pain once every four hours, and if you need it more than, you need to go to the emergency room” level of painkiller. But it would be wrong and possibly illegal for me to take those, so long story short, Tylenol and Ibuprofen are wonder drugs that have made me the new man I am today. 🙂

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Cancer

by on April 23, 2022 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

There are good days and bad days. Sometimes we push ourselves beyond our limits and just have to stop. Sometimes there are small things that tell you things are getting better. Mom just told me that she can read books again. She hasn’t been able to read for months, because she can’t maintain focus. She will read a paragraph, and have no idea what she read. Now she can sit down and read a book again and remember it. She can sit down and watch a TV series she hasn’t seen in months because she couldn’t concentrate on it. Sometimes it is the little things that are enormous.

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Cancer

by on April 22, 2022 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

The blood tests came back good for mom, and her specialists are all content with how she is progressing. Mom is feeling better herself, and is so far not suffering from a major dip in ability to operate in the week following her keytruda treatment. Either her body is adjusting to it, or it was not the source of her side effects in the first place. I will continue to closely monitor her. I ran into a bit of complication though. I moved into her basement, and have been sleeping on a couch down there. Very comfortable. A 1970s trampoline couch that is as comfortable as my waterbed. But I can’t lay flat on it, and it would seem that is not good. I’ve been having trouble getting to sleep this week, but didn’t connect the dots. It seems some of my muscle groups (especially around the left shoulder) have been unable to properly relax while I’m asleep, and today I woke up with my body telling me it was done sleeping on the couch. So off to a real bed I go…

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Cancer

by on April 21, 2022 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Today is going to be another set appointments and blood testing to make certain mom is responding well to the treatments. She has been feeling tired again, but we sorted all her pills for the next week so we can start today with a fresh set. It is amazing how many pills they have her on right now. And many of them she will be taking for the rest of her life.

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Cancer

by on April 20, 2022 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Today at the Mayo Clinic was a quick jaunt into my personal Mayo Family Clinic Northeast, rather than the big block of buildings downtown. My mom just needed to have her blood checked, and it is so much easier to have that done in the outer clinics than going downtown. And they have some good people there who can get blood even from mom’s shy veins. The good news is that her uric acid levels are down, so her primary care physician no longer wants to put her in the hospital for that. The bad news is that mom has a new medication to deal with the uric acid. We’re up to four applications of pills a day, and trying to keep them all down to a manageable level so none of them overload her. It is another delicate balancing act, but I think we’ve nailed down a good compromise.

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