Perspective...Use it or Lose It

April 2, 2012  8AM

For the past few days I have taken to using my walker inside the house.  It has been riding around in the back of my car for months now, never coming out, but there if I thought I needed it.  Now it’s in the house and I’m using it to get from room to room.  Not because I can’t do it without the walker, but because I actually feel more bent over without it than when I’m up holding the walker handles! And I walk better, meaning putting one foot in front of the other instead of what I’ve been calling my ‘old man from Florida shuffle’ walk.

The walker is the Cadillac of walkers.  It has four wheels,  and a seat with a back rest, and breaks for the wheels even.  Let’s talk about that seat for a moment.  It’s made of type of high quality plastic that mimics leather or some such thing, and it’s slippery!  I fell off the walker seat this morning.  Bending over trying to clean the mess of yogurt that I had spilled on the floor, I reached a little too far and slipped down off the walker seat to the floor.  Ugh!  Now what to do?  Okay, checking for pain and injury.  Feel okay, just ego bruised.  But my EGO has been bruised so much lately it’s developed a thick skin.  First order of business,  finish cleaning the floor since I was down there anyways.  Next,  figure out how to get up off the floor.  Hmmmmm… maneuvering onto my feet in a squat was the first try.  Unfortunately, no way I can get up from a squat position!  That first started last summer.  That day was depressing.  Not enough leg muscle anymore.  (sob)

I did finally get up off the floor by holding onto the sink and pulling myself up with my hands and arms to a standing position.  Then sat back down on the walker seat.  Pain?  Nothing out of the ordinary,  but it was time for what I call my ‘break through’ dose of tramadol and you can be sure I got that. 

Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012

Finally a moment to sit back and think about all the medical information gathered this past week.  My methadone dose is up to 15mg a day.  Not quite sure that is enough yet, but added with a small dose of ibuprofen it sure helps the pain a lot.  Breakthrough pain is handled with Tramadol, but unfortunately there is still breakthrough pain, there's gotta be a remedy to that.

The appointment with the neurosurgeon (back doctor) went very well on Thursday and I came away from it feeling pretty good.  Although first of all I have to mention again how young these guys…err…doctors are these days!  Funny!  Seriously, for Dr Hutton, oh my gosh,  I know I’m getting older and they’re looking younger but can you say, “Doogie Houser?”  Too cute.  Okay, I’m old.

Poor guy went into our meeting with the oncologist’s word that I was wanting to do everything possible to fight this cancer and started out telling us (Joyce was with me as usual) about the big surgery with an eight inch incision that stabilizes the spine with rods and pins, etc and how it can be done and work around malignant tumors. Recovery and recovery time can be challenging depending on your medical condition (well let’s face it, my medical condition is POOR already).  You’re all probably familiar with   what I’m talking about already if you or someone you know has been through back surgery.  I soon explained that I was there just to hear what he had to say because the other doctors asked me to and because of the possibility of something that would help with pain control but be an easier procedure.

The good thing about this tumor in the spine is it involves just the L3 vertebrae and does not extend into the one below or above it. Doogie explained vertrebroplasty to us where basically they inject a kind of cement into your vertebrae to stabilize where the tumor has cracked and fractured the bone.  Apparently then they shave some of the nerve endings to give them space from rubbing and causing the pain too. Small incision and a couple days in the hospital and surgery and recovery time is much less.

After a number of questions by Joyce and myself, Doogie admitted that the big ‘ole spinal surgery would probably not be in my best interest, but this vertrebroplasty would be a viable option.  He says some patients feel the relief even in the recovery room and that a two to three week recovery at home would have me up and about doing pretty well.

Two to three weeks out of my life right now would be acceptable to me. Six months of being down and feeling sick and hurting and not being ‘out there participating in my life in the world’ - even such as it is now - would not.  Six months from now the tumors that are quiet in my chest could start causing problems and that would be so disheartening.  What a waste of time!

This is where those inspirational messages of “live every day like it’s your last,” come into play.

So,  feeling pretty good about the vertrebroplasty option.  Except.  Ah yes, except… I still don’t make my own Red Blood cells! Ugh.  People do get  transfusions on a regular basis.  Maybe waiting for a bone marrow donor to show up would be a good example of why a cancer patient would/should get regular blood transfusions.  I am so thankful for blood donors, by the way, in case I haven’t said that out loud in the past twenty-four hours or so.  I will say it out loud again I AM SO THANKFUL FOR BLOOD DONORS. 

After a couple months of blood transfusions I think things start to get a little more complicated with cross matching different antibodies in the blood and other stuff I don't really understand. 

What about chemotherapy if the tumors in the chest cavity start acting up? Without being able to make my own red blood cells, uh, no chemotherapy.  That is actually my answer, not the oncologist’s, but you have to remember oncologists are in the business of saving your life from cancer and they’re trying as hard as they can, but facing medical facts here, no, no if my body can’t even support itself, why would I want to make it support the chemotherapy too? 

Okay are you ready for this?  Another big kicker in the world of Linda’s medical condition.  Amazing.

As you already know, the chemotherapy treatments that I did (six rounds of Carboplatin and Taxol) shrunk the tumors in my chest, the medianstinal area.  However, the tumor in the bone in my spine and adjacent soft tissue grew at that same time.  Doctors are scratching their heads over that.  So I thought I would ask THE QUESTION.  Ummmmm…  ‘you know I had those Melanomas years ago…what is the possibility of the stuff in the bone being melanoma?” 

The oncologist jumped all over that!  He got a little excited about the possibility.  The most recent melanoma was removed just about 10 years ago.  A long time for a cancer recurrence.  Although I have been through a number of immune suppressant therapies since then and Melanoma does have a record of recurring long after it’s initial primary showings.  So Dr Sharman (oncologist) is asking me to have at least as needle biopsy to check it out.  Of course with a back procedure it would make a biopsy real easy.  Something I will probably do one way or another just out of curiosity, rule it out kind of thing, if nothing else.  Maybe I could make it in a medical journal!

For me, treatment for it would be kind of like grasping at straws, but Dr Sharman’s heart is really in the research side of oncology. (who would thought here in the middle of Oregon?)  For him, if it DID turn out to be melanoma, there is a new clinical trial they’re conducting.  First I would be checked for some genetic marker that they have found in 50% of melanoma patients.  If I was positive for that marker than I guess they have developed a treatment in pill form that there has been some kind of success with, but I don’t have the figures on how well that works.  Maybe because it is in trial mode. 

Okay, okay you all – don’t stray, don’t stray – I still don’t make my own red blood cells.  That would have to be fixed. 

Thank you so much for reading my blog and caring about how I am doing.