7/30/11-- Wrong Turn

This entire journey over the last two and a half years has been one of incredible uncertainty. The entire time though we always thought we knew what could or would happen if things started to take a turn towards the wrong direction. We always thought things would start spreading to my lungs and the tumors on my liver would continue to grow and eventually cause the organ to stop functioning properly. Well, a week ago, cancer reminded me that it does not follow any sort of plan, it does not try to be predictable, and just when you think you have it figured out, you don’t. My world was turned upside down again about a week ago by some developments that not only caught me completely off guard, but have shaken me to my very core. I was just about recovered from my SIRT treatment and was beginning to feel better with the occasional bouts of nausea. I was experiencing a lot of pain and a lot of fatigue however, and I was keeping up with it for a time with my medications, but it eventually caught up to me and knocked me on my ass. Last Friday I finally got out of the house to grab some lunch and came home very tired and my back was pretty sore which was expected because it was the most I had exerted myself in some time. As the night wore on, however, I noticed that my back was starting to get even stiffer and I was in excruciating pain at about midnight. Saturday morning, my father had to run to get my pain prescription filled and the pain was so horrible I tried laying on the floor to see if the flat surface would help. The pain was so bad I really hadn’t eaten much and running on a stomach full of oxycodone meant I was pretty nauseous and needed to throw up. After struggling to stand up, I made it to the bathroom and did my thing. My dad came into the bathroom and I experienced something very scary, I was not able to stand up from a seated position. I did not have the strength and it hurt too much to do something so simple. That was the final straw, it was time to call the doctor. The doctor I spoke to on the phone made me realize that something very serious could be wrong if my spine was out of whack so I told my parents it was time to head into the urgent care center in the city.

We got to the city and I spent a few hours going back and forth between hydration fluids as well as morphine for the pain. I ended up getting an MRI of my spine done and it revealed some inflammation around my spine which is related to the cancer. The main concern here is that the inflammation can affect the spinal cord and eventually cause either the disks or the bones to contract and cause paralysis. The doctors decided to admit me to the hospital and begin treating me with powerful steroids as well as radiation to my lower back. The bad news didn’t end here however…

Since the pain was in my spine, it is protocol to also do an MRI on the brain since it’s all related. The MRI revealed a very small 7mm lesion on my brain which has not affected my function at all which is a very good thing. They are still deciding if they want to treat the lesion with radiation to the entire brain or a very directed method which is very powerful. The neurologists still have time to decide what the course of action will be for that because they caught it so early. One more test we are waiting on is the result from the spinal tap…which is not a fun procedure even though they numb you, try to imagine a giant needle being shoved into your spine. I honestly forget what those results will even tell us, I just know that I have to do at least ten rounds of radiation on my spine and will be in the hospital for at least another week. I’m a bit out of it because of all the pain medications they’ve been giving me, but I need them. The pain in my back gets unbearable without them. All in all I’m not sure what is going to happen. I just know that I’m incredibly lucky to have such supportive friends and family and there’s no way I’d even come close to holding it together without them. I’m just taking it one day at a time and trying to stay as active as I can by walking around the halls and talking to everyone. We’ll see what happens…sure I’m scared, and sure I’m still confident that I can and will come out on top of this thing, but this is not how I expected anything to go. One day at a time…I’m sorry I’m not super insightful or very descriptive for this post, but it’s tough to stay awake and stay focused on things for very long. Hopefully I’ll have some better news to report next time, but being relentless means sustaining your efforts when it is understandable to give up…just can’t give in…one day at a time.