Monday, June 10, 2013

Pain

In my previous posts, I might have mentioned that my back pain increased as I wound down form one treatment and approached the next.  It seems that this was due to chemo knocking my primary tumor's growth temporarily with it kicking back up again as it wore off.  Although this is unconfirmed speculation, my primary chest tumor has grown based on both my CT to get set up for radiation and another CT later last week to investigate some mysterious chest pain.  This growth has correlated with a very large increase in pain.  Thankfully, my doctors are very responsive to my changing symptoms so my pain killer regimen was tripled.  Although this has helped a lot (I no longer feel like someone beat my over the back with a steel rod), I've been fighting a losing battle with my back pain over the last week.  What was really interesting was my random left thigh/knee pain which made me limp all weekend.  My guess is that the tumor put some pressure a nerve from that area.  They took some leg X-rays, but I doubt they will show anything since my pain left today as quickly as it came on Saturday.    

I have been able to come into lab to work mostly regular hours, but now I've had to get the yoga mat back out to lay down on every couple of hours like before I started treatment.  Tonight, I ended up leaving lab early and was mostly confined to laying down instead of my planned return to get some needed work done.  Getting a fever and spending some time in the Cancer Care Clinic to make sure I didn't have a threatening infection didn't help with my time either. I will be gaining some time back thanks to the addition of a new lab tech whom I am training.  He is starting to be useful, so hopefully I can get some quality help with things as my treatment progresses.

The good news of this post is that I am starting radiation tomorrow at 1:30.  I was originally scheduled for Friday, but I emailed my radiation oncologist to see if we couldn't start any sooner to help out with my pain.  Thankfully, the people who figure out the magic behind getting radiation specifically to my cancer without zapping the rest of me came through early.  I should be in and out of radiation in only half an hour, so no hospital visitors will be needed for the next 6 weeks.  I'll let you know if it actually works out that way.


2 comments:

  1. glad the docs are able to start your treatment early! Hope it works!

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  2. I am also happy to hear that doctors are going to start your treatment early. if you any problems you can visit my link Myofascial pain in Taiwan
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