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Post-Chemo #4 – Day 2
TLDR; I’m doing pretty well today! But first, a… Mom Update The current place where she’s at is pretty crappy, it sounds like. It can take 20 minutes to an hour for a nurse to show up in her room after she’s pressed the call button. The nurses aren’t following care directions either, so sounds like Mom is pretty frustrated. She’s supposed to be moving to a different facility for Medicare reasons, but she also has another lung infection. The “care coordinator” doesn’t know what’s causing it, so she can’t really go anywhere until they solve that. The halo is staying on for at least 12 weeks, as the trach…
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Surgery Post-Op & Radiation
Mayo Appointments Linds and I traveled to Rochester on Thursday night for three Friday appointments. We took the long way down, headed east towards and into Wisconsin. Stopped in Red Wing for the cool pottery and antique shop. For those who aren’t familiar with Minnesota, this is where the Mississippi carved our river valley (the closest thing we have to mountains). It’s a really pretty drive. Then we stopped at a local restaurant in Rochester to grab dinner. I knocked off a couple of bucket-list/post-chemo list items: eating steak tartare and oysters. First appointment of the day was survivor’s clinic. Normally in these appointments you determine the next steps in…
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Elasticity
Poor Me I know it’s terrible of me to make this joke, but I keep telling people that cancer is the best thing I have going for me right now. Out of all the things to go well, I’m glad it’s that. But the rest of the world either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that I’m still going through cancer; it still manages to slap me across the face. Not that I enjoy vague-writing, but it’s important to me that I’m honest about what I’m going through. And life doesn’t stop with a cancer diagnosis. I’ll admit to breaking down a few times this month. I can feel my nerves…
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Accommodations
It dawned on me just a week before radiation that I needed a place to stay. The local cancer place has a waiting list and it’s at limited capacity thanks to COVID. One option was to hold out hope and rent a place week by week. Depending on that gamble, I could be looking at a couple hundred dollars or a couple thousand. Airbnb places ranged from the $40s to $100s. Some of the lower-end places looked a little sketchy, and I don’t want to move from place to place for 5 weeks. I plan on brining a monitor and setting up camp for work, and that’s a pain in…
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The Final Countdown
This week has been a shitshow. I’ve been pretty nervous about being alone for five weeks. Then on Friday, I’m driving the kids to school when we get hit by another car. We were going straight on a light and this guy merges on but instead of staying in the lane that’s created from the turn (the right lane) he immediately veers in front of us. I luckily was paying attention – I braked and honked. He still managed to damage the right front, but missed Evelyn by a few feet. We called the police right away. It took them a while to get there. Meanwhile, this guy is telling…
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Radiation: Days 1 & 2
I survived! But it’s been a long couple of days. I miss my kids. My dogs…sleeping in this apartment has been ok. I have not been sleeping well. I think I’ve managed six hours of sleep in the last two days. I’m guessing it’s stress related. Radiation didn’t start until 3 on Monday, so I spent the day being nervous AF. I had an 8 am appointment that morning with a cardiologist. Mayo now offers certain benefits to cancer patients – so I was able to get an appointment with someone who can give me a workout regiment based on my history. That went great. I felt more justified doing…
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Radiation: Days 3 & 4
Day 3 Had a weird dinner out. I made reservations for myself. I sat down next to grandparents with their son and daughter-in-law and young grandkid (probably around 3/4). Because this grandmother is loud, I am overhearing their conversation on how the son should save money. (“Stop going out to eat!”) And then overhear the father threaten the kid. I remember those days where the kid wouldn’t listen to anything…but it was still slightly disturbing. Made me want to leave right away. Treatment was at 8:45 p.m., but I reported early for a ”therapy verification” appointment. Only that happened after. Parked in the normal parking ramp for treatment. Went down…
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Radiation: Day 5 & the First Weekend Home
I am happy to report I love the apartment I moved into on Friday. I was up early to clean out the Airbnb and move the rest of my crap into the car. I discovered this new apartment building has carts, which meant only one big trip with all my stuff. The place is pretty big with floor to ceiling windows overlooking a river. I had an appointment with my radiation oncologist in the evening that took all of 10 minutes. We’ll meet weekly and that’s when you go over all the side effects. Nothing yet to report. I waited another hour or so for my scheduled treatment. It was…
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Radiation: Protons on Hold
Three days and no radiation. What’s a gal to do? Photon therapy. If you thought photon therapy was what I’ve been getting, you’re not the only one. Took me some minutes to figure out photons and protons are not the same thing. I am unsure of the technical differences between the two; what I remember is that protons impact less of the internal organs. Photons are what most radiation patients get (protons are special to Mayo). The radiation oncology nurse left me a message in my Mayo portal: I’ll be doing photon therapy until the protons are back up. I asked about the timing – they’ll update my portal each…
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Radiation: Photons + Easter
Where we last left our protagonist, she was going in for photons… Which is an experience. Even the waiting room has a whole different feel to it. Things are done a little differently in the photon center. You get called back over the loudspeaker. There are several different dressing rooms – I guess it doesn’t matter where you go. The nurse comes back to get you like usual, but the gowns are backless (not the three arm holes that are everywhere else I’ve been), so there are a lot of older folks awkwardly walk around holding their gown and turning to make sure no one sees anything. The rooms are…
