Ultrasound of music.. I mean my heart!

Oh yeah, the week was not over yet.. Monday: blood test, Tuesday: gastroscopy, Wednesday: (man I hate the spelling of that day) heart sonograph/ultrasound/ultrasonography! Yeah it's that thing they do to pregnant women with the gel and scanner thingy on the stomach. Only this was aimed at my heart. They measured every ventricle, artery, atrium and valve to make sure it's in tip-top condition. Took bloody 45min too! Why? Because the radiation will be hitting not only my tumor but also my heart, left lung, trachea and esophagus. The heart should be fine but I can get some immediate symptoms from the lung, throat and skin. Those symptoms include skin burning, heartburn (acid reflux) and "fake" pneumonia. So not real pneumonia but pretty much the same symptoms. But once again all symptoms are quite individual so you never know, I might just be compatible with radiation? ;)

Gastronomical findings?

Some things are, and should be, on a need-to-know-basis (at least in the movies they seem to have lots of that) and maybe that's good. When you get called to a procedure like gastroscopy it's really not good to read up about it too much and see what other people think. It builds up unnecessary anxiety. And for most people an experience like that can be quite traumatic I guess? So after reading up on it quite a lot I was a bit nervous that it would be as horrible as the lung endoscopy.. Well, it's not! Not even same ballpark! Sure you can find better things to do than puking air for 5min straight but this was just another quick stop at the docs office for me. I didn't even take the local anesthesia for this one. I came in, layed down on my left side on the bed, got a thickish (much thicker than the lung-tube) tube in my throat and tried to swallow it.. Then I started throwing up non-stop for a few minutes (which made easy access for the tube) and after a few biopsy claws had been in there, they pulled it out. I thanked for an interesting experience and walked to my car and drove home. Then I ate breakfast! Like a Boss! =)

Sure I had a bit of a sore throat afterwards, but the only thing I was interested in was the findings of the biopsy. They told me they would call me on Monday (8/10), I got the call on Thursday. No biggie, since I wasn't really that worried about it, but still kind of strange to keep me in the dark for over a week. Anyway, got the call and everything was fine as expected, so all this did was postpone the radiation for anther week. I might have some sort of chronic inflammation of the stomach wall but since I've never felt it or had any issues with it what so ever, who cares! I'm busy killing cancer!

The CAT is my PET

Stay back kids and gannies, daddy is going nuclear! Or at least I was, for a few hours. Went for a complete body scan again and man is it boring! Once they inject the radioactive isotope, you need to lie still for like 50min.. and you can't even read a book! Or play with your phone!! Aaargh! AD/HD kicks in after about 10min, so I'd say at 50min it's borderline torture. At least when you're done, you get to tightly sqeeze inside a huge tube and not move a muscle for another 30min! And all this while glowing like the skyline of Chernobyl of -86. But it's all for the good of my health so enough complaining.. Even the cannula went in on the first attempt. =)

Then I got some interesting results the day after (27/9). I already had a radiation therapy meeting set up for next week but -whooptidoo- change of plans! It seems my stomach wall has some issues with either the pills I've been eating (corticosteroids) or the cancer I've been having so that's what's next on the agenda of check-ups. It's unusually thick or swollen and needs to be checked for cancer just in case. Now how do they do that..? **drumroll and french horns** Esophagogastroduodenoscopy!! Or as us mortals prefer to call it, gastroscopy. Personally I feel like one endoscopy was quite enough and rather unenjoyable too (the lungs), but then again, better to be safe than sorry and it's all for the greater good and blaah blaah. So a little trouble in "paradise" after all. IF it really is lyphoma acting up, even though it's very unlikely, I'll be back on chemo by next week. If not, we can just call this a minor speed bump and radiation will be back on the schedule as planned. Oh and yeah, the tumor is quite tiny now

Edit: Wanted to add this picture here.. Seems suitable for the gastro. =)

Chemo 6 of 6 and Spiro V?

6th time's the charm? Hopefully yeah, and also quite probable judging from the previous check-up. Blood tests went smoothly and all the values have been close to identical every three weeks so it's looking like Mike 6-0 Chemo. The last visit at the day hospital was almost bitter-sweet, almost.. 99% of me never wants to see that place again EVER, but that 1% of me got used to it and it felt somehow safe to be there, knowing that I'm getting taken care of. Even if it means having a god-damned cannula stuck in my vein. (I really hate those things by now!) And also it's the only place I ever read more than 20 pages from a book in one session. Now I'm never going to finsh the three books I have going. Anyway, if everything goes as in Strömsö, I won't have to go back in a long time! (Never say never..)

And then there was spirometry! I've honestly lost count but I have a feeling this is my 5th time.. Could be 6th or 7th if we count the failed attempts and multiple tests per day? However, because I'm a responsible adult and I tend to learn from my mistakes I managed to pull a Britney (Ooops I did it again..) and miss my Monday morning appointment (17/9)! Since I did make it to my second dermatologist appointment (3/9) I guess they thought Monday mornings are fine now somehow..? Well they're not! So after another earfull of bullshit over the phone I got it rescheduled to Thursday 20/9. This time I managed to get there, only about 10min late, since I went to three different places before I was pointed in the right direction. The spirometry and diffusion capacity measurings were done at the allergies-department now. Funny how they seem to have those machines on every floor at TYKS. The good news in all this mess was that my values in capacity, peak flow, diffusion and everything else were all back to normal (89-105% of reference values) compared to the 50-60% readings taken back in May. Lung volume alone went up two litres! So things are really looking peachy! Next stop, PET + CT!!

Dermatologist, take 2.0

Wohoo I made it! 8.15 on Monday morning and on time! I would've NEVER accepted an appointment this early if it wasn't for me f***ing up last week, but guilt makes you do stupid things. But this time karma really got to bite me in the ass. I had to wait for at least 1h30min before I got to see anyone! I wake up at 7:30 on a Monday morning, drive half-asleep in chaotic, aggressive, crappy morning traffic, show up on time with my hat in my hand feeling ashamed for last week and this is what I get!! I think I got called in at around 9:50! Spank you very much! The best part is that all the rashes I was supposed to show the doctor had now disappeared and I felt kinda dumb (and royally pissed off) coming in there with nothing to show. Of course I do have about a million allergies and stuff so I had a long list of demands.. err suggestions on what I would like to have examined. But of course they can't start anything before all the other treatments are over so I'll have my prick-tests and such done in December some time (4 appointments!). Also the bite from the tick wasn't looking like anything was blooming in there so I guess the visit wasn't all for nothing.. Fun times.

Oops..

Well I guess it had to happen at least once.. I missed a doctors appointment! For starters it was on a Monday morning, and secondly it wasn't really related to the cancer. So it was doomed to fail. I was going to check up on some skin rashes at the dermatologist to see if they were somehow related to the medicine I'm using but apparently it wasn't that important to me.. I did notice that I had the appointment though but a few hours late. So I called them and played my dumbass-card along with some exceptionally bad excuses and got another appointment for the week after (3/9). On Monday morning! Funny how they seem to have plenty of free timeslots for that time of the week, eh?

I also got to test my cardio-endurance the same week (31/8) when I took a trip to the Nagu forests to look for mushrooms. Usually you don't have to walk that far for a sufficient amount of shrooms to make you satisfied but I guess the strange weather this summer has produced a really shitty shroom-season. We walked around for about 1h20min in rough terrain and I almost had a friggin' heart attack! Sure we found a little something to put in a stew but it wasn't really worth the effort. Jumping Jesus I was exhausted! I could barely walk for two days.. I guess the chemo does have some other negative effects that you don't notice before pushing yourself physically. Anyway, aside from a disappointing amount of forest-loot I got a tick as well. All I need now is a case of Lyme Disease or TBE.

Chemo 5 of 6 and results time!

So one week went by and I finally got to know something about how the tumor is doing in there among all the toxins inside me. Well, it's not good news.. For the tumor!! =) It's down to 5x6cm in size now and has completely withdrawn from covering my left lung. Good old CHOP-R is kicking ass and taking names. Anyway, I'm not gonna start jumpin up and down (in risk of breaking the floor) yet, I'll save it for when the whole thing is dead and gone! After about a month after the 6th treatment I'm gonna go all readioactiveman again and go for a PET-scan where it will be decided how much radiation therapy is needed to blast the rest of the tumor out. Could be 4-6 weeks EVERY friggin' day (working day) for a whopping 1-2min at the time so I'm not looking forward to that. But all means are good means if I get completely cured!

I don't have much to add about the same old boring chemo-visits. I'm back to my good old room with my very capable and nice nurse, so things are running smoothly. They halved my dosage of vincristine so that I might get rid of the numbness in my fingers, hopefully that'll work. I was told (now!) that usually patients stop having finger symptoms between treatments, I've had them for almost two months now. So yeah, time to cut the dose! In worst cases it can be permanent! Apparently the thin nerves at the fingertops can just wither away and never return if you get too much Oncovin. But that's a minor problem. Still feeling good, no other disturbing symptoms and livin' la vida loca. (And for some reason gaining a lot of weight recently.. Typical!) 

Edit (24/7): Whaddaya know.. My fingers are much better now! =)