Thursday, July 31, 2008

The Blog Is Temporarily Turning Into A Photo Album

Happy Second Anniversary!


Here you can see my neck, 
but the blisters don't show up very well
And I'm redder now...


Another picture on our anniversary!


Ruekie!!!


Ears...I mean Edgar!!!!


These are all from the flowers Warner got me 
for finishing radiation and chemo!






This one is my favorite












I'm still learning more about the mac and Aperture, so if you've got any pointers for me (especially for Aperture) let me know. I think I used photoshop once in an art class so basically it's just me messing around right now. Anyway, in case you missed it in the last post...I'm finished with treatment!!!!! Yeah, just wanted to make sure you all knew. Oh, and it's raining outside, and I looooove the rain!!! I keep getting distracted by looking out my window!Another oh! Warner got me a necklace for finishing treatment (yeah, I'm getting super spoiled). It has diamonds and two Ruby's on it and it is kind of in the shape of a cancer ribbon, but not really. I'll take a picture and show you all later.  For now, enjoy the pictures I have posted!!! And celebrate me being done with treatment. I'll be celebrating once my mouth doesn't hurt and I can enjoy some good food!!!

The End.

Haha, in no way shape or form is this the end, but it is the end of treatment! I'm officially DONE with radiation!!!!! Countdown's at zero!!!! Nap Time!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

I Feel Like I Should Be Sitting At Starbucks With My New Mac Writing This Blog...Like All The Cool Kids

I am hocking up loogies like you would NOT believe (they can basically fill a washcloth). Seriously, it's all I do...all day long. I have those dang mouth ulcers as well so it makes blowing mucus out of your throat and mouth uncomfortable. My throat is pretty raw from not being able to drink much (basically I take a sip of water and immediately rinse with salt water because that soothes the ulcers from the thrush and mucositis) and I'm sure it's pretty torn up from the radiation, I mean if the inside of my throat is anything like the outside, it's going to take some time to heal up, I just want to keep swallowing (however little that may actually be) so my throat doesn't close up, it just BURNS my tongue (I've tried water and tea, the only thing that doesn't burn is salt water - WEIRD!) I'm taking pain pills for the ulcers and I have a lidocaine mouthwash that isn't so magic (it lasts like 5 minutes), Robitussin for the loogies, and nystatin for the thrush, so I've got my bases covered in the pain management area. 



This morning I didn't get my Robitussin as early as I needed for it to work during treatment (my PEG tube got clogged so we were running late and I had to unclog it in the car) so I spent the whole treatment time trying to get the mucus out of the back of my throat and up the bite piece - it has a hole in the middle - while laying on my back. By the end, I had hocked enough up there and hard enough that it was coming out the top - my tech, Josh, said that was quite gross and then he went and washed it off for me while I spit what was left in my mouth in my washcloth and he watched helplessly with a disgusted look on his face. He felt really bad for me and he kept asking if he could do anything or get anything for me, but basically the only thing I can do for it is to just get it all up! 


So, enough about mucus...gross. I'm done with TOMO! Never again! I just have to survive tomorrow's treatment in full gear (mask, neck bolus, and bite plate) and I'll be on my way to healing! I meant to bring my camera today to treatment but because my PEG tube got clogged I left the house without it - the plan is to bring it tomorrow, or at least to remember my phone. I did get more flowers from Warner today and I spent some time taking pictures of them and using Aperture to edit them. I just have no clue how to get them from Aperture (I don't know the program very well yet) to the blog, so, you're just going to have to wait.  I even have one of my neck for you all to see how red it is, but alas, you will just have to be patient!


I am very ready for tomorrow to be over (If I haven't mentioned that yet). The good thing is, my treatment is at 9:30am and not 6:00am like all my Tomo treatments were, granted I'm up about every 1-2 hours at night hocking up loogies anyway, so sleep doesn't happen as much anymore. I go back to see Dr. Fields in two weeks, he was kind enough to give me a week off, but I have to go see Dr. Bienvenue on Monday because apparently my white blood cell count was getting a little low (not low enough to not get chemo on Monday or to really be concerned, he was just out of town so his partner thought he might want to see me on schedule), so I don't really get the day off. 


So, Todd and Julie will be here on Saturday and I'm looking forward to having some company. Friday and Saturday are also tax free shopping days in Louisiana! Hmm...What should I buy?

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Happy Second Anniversary!!!

ACK! Warner, being the most amazing guy on this planet gave me a Macbook Pro for our anniversary! Me, being the scum on the bottom of our shower has not even bought a card for him yet! YIKES! My mom offered to go pick one up at the store for me, but that somehow felt like cheating! Ya know what is so cool about this computer? The keyboard lights up, IT LIGHTS UP!! How cool is that? 


Ah, in other news, I guess you all want to hear about cancer, right? Monday was my last chemo! Woohoo! I got a certificate that all the nurses signed and I have to bring it back to have Dr. Bienvenu sign it as well because he was on vacation on Monday. I had to get stuck twice for my blood work but the got my IV on the first shot! I snoozed a little bit and then bid the chemo room goodbye, hopefully for forever. 

Tomorrow is my last day on the Tomo machine for radiation. Which means it will be the last time my neck gets radiated, EVER. Which is good because it is blistering and oozing and is nasty. It doesn't hurt too much except when it gets dry, or during radiation when I have that wretched mask and neck bolus on (and it's dry because I can't have anything on my skin during treatment). My thrush is back full force, like you would not believe. It's on my tongue really bad and just plain water burns like the dickens. So basically I can drink like three sips of water at a time if I use lidocaine first (it only lasts like 5 minutes). So I have a really dry mouth and throat since I can't drink much water / liquid, which I'm sure doesn't help the thrush situation and it definitely doesn't help the mucus in my throat and mouth issue. 


Anyway, my Thursday treatment is only treating my tongue so my neck is done (did I mention that already, because I'm really excited about that). It's on a different machine that spins around you while you are laying there. I have different techs also. My favorite tech has been there all this week which has made it more bearable. I've had a lot of gagging problems this week while laying on the table because of my mucus. Today, Tuesday, was better than Monday because on Monday I threw up all my meds on my way out the door to treatment (I gagged on my mucus, it happens A LOT). We'll see how tomorrow goes. I had to get x-rayed on the new machine today to get set up for Thursday - it went okay I guess. 


Last night my Paula shaped hole in my heart was filled, ever so briefly! Paula came back to town (I don't remember why, but the important part was she was here) and she came to Gonzales to hang out with me! Unfortunately I can't really talk because of the ulcers / thrush so it was a quiet evening on my part, but she was here. Now she is at the beach so Louisiana is sad once again. 
 

So, today I went out to Luling for a little while and brought the dogs. They got stuck outside for a few minutes and it starting pouring down raining! So, what do the two punks do instead of running for cover or to the back door to come in? They run around and play in the rain like the insane little monsters they are. THEN, after it stops raining they conned my brother into letting them outside AGAIN and they proceeded to dig in the mud and get covered and run around the living room once they were let in! 


So, now I'm going to go spend some time with Warner seeing as it is our anniversary and all! Now I need to hurry up and get better so we can actually celebrate our anniversary! I'll post pictures and such later on, I don't have anything on this computer yet!

Coming Soon to A Blog Near You

Our Anniversary
3 treatments to go update
2 treatments to go
Final Chemo
Paula comes to town
Mouth sores and a blistered neck
Whatever else I think about later on!

Friday, July 25, 2008

My Wife is Too Perfect (aka Holding Steady at Four)

This morning Lynn, Dr. Fields' nurse called Stephanie's phone and said he needed to talk to her. Of course she could have said "*kchh* Houston, we are go for freakout, again we are go for freakout. Commence freakout *kchh*" and of course we did. Stephanie asked me to call them back around 12:30, which I did promptly and left a voice mail on the number I had. I was called back by some very nice lady, whose name I didn't catch and was very much NOT Dr. Fields. Undaunted I called MBP and left a message at the nurses desk around 1:30. At 2:30 I called MBP again and this time got to an operator and asked for Dr. Fields. He came on the line very cheerily and said that he had been thinking for a few weeks that since Stephanie had close margins he wanted to add one treatment to the end to make sure we had the best chance of getting all the cancer. He then asked if that was ok and more importantly whether or not we had any cruises planned...then he laughed for probably the second time I've heard him laugh. I told him that we hadn't planned any cruises just yet.

So now the radiation treatments don't end the day after our anniversary, but the day after that. Chemo still ends the day before our anniversary. I'm not sure how we will celebrate, any ideas?

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Four!!!!!!!!!!

Enough Said....