Oh right, still alive and kicking! ;)

Greetings folks! No, I don't expect anyone is reading this anymore.. But still I've had this post on my to-do-list for 3yrs now and somehow the ol' thumb has been lodged in my downstairs opening for this long. Well here we are, it's 2016 and I'm all done with CAT-scans for now. The last one was November 2015 and things are looking good so no more unnecessary radiation unless I show signs of sickness again. Even the blood test got moved up 2 years this time around so hopefully no needles in this guy before 2017. The last two needle-appointments have been surprisingly good, but 2014 was a total fail-a-thon. The blood test took 4 attempts to find a working vein but the all time record was for the CAT-scan cannula a few days later, 7 holes!! I will never forget that.. Two nurses failed on both arms up to 5 times and then they called down the expert from the upper floor to do it and even he failed once! :D He ended up putting it in my hand right next to the pinky finger, hurt like hell. Lot of weakness left the body that day..

Anyway, so much time has passed so I'm a bit hazy with the details of my previous visits but all in all I'm pretty much cured. I left lymphoma indeed.. Kickass! I'm still fat, old and lazy but at least I get a few more years of life if I can keep myself healthy and strong. I did get married 2013 and I'm on my third/fourth job since then so life is back to normal. I have also surpassed all my previous weightlifting personal bests since before my illness so no apparent harm in muscle function (even though I have some problems with my shoulder atm, but I guess that's a part of lifting weights you can't escape). The only thing that I didn't drop was the weight (FAT!) I gained for loafing around in the sofa for a year, maybe some day..? (Yeah right)

Anyway, life's good and I presume this may be the very last post in this blog, since blog writing is stoopid. Thanks to everyone who read this over the years and I'm happy if I have helped someone who is going through similar things in life. Cancer is a bitch and most of us either get it or have someone close to us who gets it sooner or later, all we can do is fight back with everything we have.. And then some.. I was one of the lucky ones who made it thanks to our awesome healthcare at TYKS and the professionals in medicine who save lives every day. I owe my life to you. Thank you.

Happy New Year!!

I have to admit I was a bit pissed off with the "bad service" at TYKS this time around, so far I have never had to wait for several days for anything. Now I had to wait for an entire weekend and then some. But when I finally got there on Monday everything worked like clockwork! In a miniscule window of time I had to see the doctor, pick up a friend, go shopping for booze and explosives, drop off the friend, get back to the hospital, pick him up again, pick up my fianceé, pack everything up and organize a party for 14 people! And yes, it worked! I got to the hospital at 11:30, the doctor was available at 11:45.. It was the same doc that made the final dignosis and treatment scheme for the Lymphoma so I guess I was in good hands. She was pretty confident it was the radiation pneumonitis I have probably mentioned as a possible side-effect earlier but just to be sure she booked a blood test and lung x-ray. By 12:30 I had taken both. And the blood sample was taken with only one sting.. Imagine that! =) (So much for avoiding the blood lab 'til February) By 14:00 I had to be back at the hospital for results and prescriptions. The X-ray was in agreement with a pneumonitis and the blood sample had a slightly elevated CRP so back on cortisone and antibiotics! Both were old acquaintances: Prednisolone (20days) and Doximycin (8 days). (And a shitload of Ventoline!!) But I'll start with that crap next year! =) By 16:00 we were already setting up the party and we had a great new years celebration! Enter 2013!!

And yeah, I won't be going to work 2/1/2013. Sick leave continued..

Wheezing X-mas

The week before christmas I started to notice some degree of wheezing and bubbling in the lungs again when laying in bed trying to sleep. As usual the noice was worse when having all my weight on the left side of the ribcage (the cancer side) and only when breating deep slow breaths, as you would when you sleep. I think I even had to get up some nights to take a whiff of the good 'ol Ventoline (the one I got for my "asthma") to make it stop. The weekend before x-mas was even worse, didn't get quality sleep at all, and x-mas at the parents house made the symptoms go totally bananas! A house with two cats and six dogs running around wasn't what the doctor ordered for my already shitty lung-situation. Even with almost overdosing with allergy pills and regularly sucking on the ventoline discus I had constantly trouble breathing and felt short of breath even sitting down most of the time during x-mas eve. The only positive side is I didn't eat too much since filling the stomach maked breating even harder. During the night when I sleep in the "allergy-house" things usually get a bit better but once I go back to the main building it hits you like an avalanche in a matter of minutes. So after sleeping badly for about 6h and spending a few hours upstairs (where the cats hang out most of the time) x-mas day turned out to be one of the worst days since the start of the cancer. At about 4-5 pm I almost had to crawl back to bed (which was 150m away through deep snow) and I really had to dig deep not to collapse half way since I wasn't getting any oxygen at all. Felt like I was barely conscious and I had to take a break every few steps I managed to walk. Probably should've asked someone to help me out a bit? Well, I managed to get to my inhaler so I could breathe again and sleep a few hours in a cat-free environment. By this time I waqs also pretty sure I was running a fever. I think I woke up at 9 pm and by that time everyone had left except my parents so once I got back x-mas was pretty much over. Fun day!

I didn't spend much time in the big house after that, sat around in the allergy house 'til 4-5 am and slept like 10h after that. Most of the allergy symptoms was gone but by then but the cough was so bad that my entire ribcage and spine was hurting with every movement. Also the wheezing was loud and disturbing which ever way I tried to sleep so maybe it's time to call the radiation doctor and ask what's up! The next day I call TYKS to explain my situation but naturally 90% of the doctors are off for the holidays so the only available time is on new years eve..! The funny thing is that my inhaler is empty too, so all I can do is eat painkillers and pray for the next three days! Oh glorious christmas time..

Free at last..?

Well, at least I didn't have to visit the hospital for a good 3 weeks. And I call them good because those weeks were almost symptom-free and my skin didn't have to get punctured anywhere! =) Anyway, time to settle the score from September and finally get a complete allgery test done. This is done in three steps: Monday morning (10/12) I go to see the allergy doctor and we discuss what I want to have examined, she makes a list and I wait for the nurse to prepare the patches. The nurse then pretty much covers my entire back with strips of small round shaped paches with different substances that are common allergens. Then I take it easy (not that I was planning for a marathon) for 48h and make no sudden movements and try to sleep flat on my back so that the adhesive tape keeping the patches in place doesn't come off. On Wednesday (12/12) the patches are removed and the itchy spots are marked as possible allergic reactions. In fact all the patch-areas are marked with a black marker and covered with adhesive tape again so that they can find the right spots on Friday (14/12). But the exposed areas are not covered so they are now "breathing freely". Did I meantion I don't get to shower all week? At least not my upper body.. Sweaty and nice! Wednesday they also did a prick test on my arm which only took about 45min and gave no surprising results really.. Same old, same old! Finally on Friday all the tape is removed and patch-areas are analyzed and I get to shower! Not the most convenient of weeks but at least they got some new results.

From the prick test, which I've done once before, it was reconfirmed that I have problems with pretty much any animals with fur, horse being the worst, and some plants and trees (pollen). The only thing that changed is that I seem to have cured my dust mite allergy? Yay! The patch test confirmed that I don't have penicillin allergy (which I thought I've had all my life) and I do have a violent reaction to nickel. The newcomers were Lyral and some kind of perfumes mix that occur in most hygiene products, soaps, detergents and such. So that's fun, if it says "perfume" on the bottle, I shouldn't use it! One of these days I'm going to have to get me one of those bubbles to live in. "Look, there's Bubble-Bro!!" Looking forward to that. But yeah, all in all a "fun" week and I got to visit TYKS frequently yet again. Now to surf the web for a king-size bubble..

Prick test:

 

I can see the light..

Yup, I can see the light now! It's almost over and it seems I won this round. Had my last visit to the blood lab, the last doctors' appointment for a long time and there's only three treatments left! Not much news from the doc really, they won't declare me 100% healthy for another 5 years or so (if ever?), but the treatments are officially over Monday 19/11 and then there will be nothing hospital-related for about 3 months. The effect of the radiation will go on for a few weeks after the final blast. The risk of getting lymphoma-reloaded is there, but it's not that big. If I do get sick again, at least they will know it at an early stage since I'm going to have regular check-ups for at least those 5 years. The risk of renewal is at it's highest within 2 years from when the treatments end, so every pit-stop will be a nail-biter for that period of time.

The soarness in the throat is slightly better too, either I'm getting used to the pain or maybe the body learned how to handle the radiation and produce sufficient mucus (gotta love that word) anyway? I hope my throat goes back to normal soon.. Also I had quite the sendoff from the blood lab yesterday (13/11). It was the worst amateur EVER!! And yes, it was a man. He kept tapping my veins for a long time, switched arms, taptaptap, went back to the left arm, taptaptap.. Then he made a leap of faith and stuck the needle in.. Nothing! Kept digging.. Nothing! Took it out, stuck it back in.. Nothing! GOD DAMN DUDE!! How hard can it be?? At this point I started to feel a bit queezy but at the same time he gave up decided to draw blood from my hand. Haha! My HAND!! Jeez what an amateur.. Well he got the job done. I don't like the blood lab anymore. Not that it has ever been a contending favourite in life. Today I made my last visit to the lab, fortunately only for a routine EKG. As I might've mentioned earlier, the radiation area is also covering my heart and lungs so they need to follow up on that too, so I don't get any immediate complications. But now it's safe to say: no more lab for months! =)

Radio Ga-Ga

TGIF!! It's funny how fridays have a meaning again, no radiation for two days! Three weeks down and one to go. This is starting to feel like going to work every day and that's a feeling I really don't miss right now. Even though being strapped down from my face for few minutes each day isn't that bad.. Only thing that sucks is the optimistic time-planning in the radiation deptartment. I've been to 15 treatments so far and I'm quite sure a maximum of 3-5 of those have been exactly at the given time. Either they're running late for some reason, sometimes early and a few times the place has been crowded because one of the radiation machines is broken. At one point this week two of them were out of service. With 5 radiation rooms and patients dropping in every 10min that can screw up a daily schedule quite badly! Also I've managed to get in a few minutes late (max 3min) a few times which means they pick the next one before me and I get to wait 10min. This also happens if you arrive at the exact minute you're supposed to get called in. Old people usually arrive like 30min in advance so I've lost my turn at least 3-4 times so far. At least I get to feel young in the waiting area, I think I've seen one person that can be categorized as the same generation as I am. Cancer isn't that popular among people in their 30's, weird huh?

Anyway, only side-effect I've felt is a soar throat. Both tubes! The trachea is in a constant state of feels-like-I'm-getting-a-flu and the esophagus is just short on lubricant. It hurts like hell when I swallow dry, hot, cold, coarse or acidic foods or drinks. It started some time last week and has been getting worse every day. So it's making eating and drinking somewhat restricted, maybe I can lose weight now? ;) (I wish!) Now that I think about it my skin has also been slightly reddish after the treatments but not anything like a sunburn.. yet! So not much left now. Every day I get in, wait for a few minutes to half an hour, get called in, take my shoes and shirt off, jump up on the motorized bed, get strapped down and get scanned and radiated. Takes about 5-10min once I'm in there! They also have to align me perfectly with my four tattoos and this takes some effort from the poor nurses who have to pull me back and forth on the bed. It helps a little bit that they have a sheet on a somewhat slippery surface, but still, I'm no lightweight. To make it easier for them I've quite well mastered the position I'm supposed to be in, Tuesday and Wednesday they didn't even have to touch me! I just found the exact position myself. They found it rather impressive. We're talking less than millimeter range here! But yeah, 6 treatments left and I'm a free man!

Here's a picture and a video of how the machine works:

Back to the oncology department!

It's a warm fuzzy feeling when you know that the entire contents of your ribcage will soon get bitch-slapped by ionizing beams of death.. I guess that's why I had a doctor's appointment first so they could explain how they do it? Well, at least I thought it was supposed to be a brief reassuring chat but I ended up spending 3h there! At first I did go for a brief chat and of course the usual crap where they listen to your heart and lungs even though I had recently had both spirometry and heart sonography and know those are in great shape, but I guess they have to do something to earn the 30€ I spend for each doctors visit. There is no such thing as free medicare..!

Anyway, then I hear I'm supposed to get x-rayed, measured and prepped for the radiation too. (And naturally another visit the blood-lab.) So I wait outside the X-ray room for a good 20min until I get called into a big spacious room with about five people ready to take me on. First they lay me down on a moving bed with the usual doughnut-shaped x-ray machine but this room had four lasers in the roof measuring me up on the bed. The nurses rock me back and forth and keep drawing on me with markers until they get me in a good position. Suddenly they attack me with a wet, rubbery asphyxation blanket and strap it down to the bed. (Sort of like this one: Neck Fixation) Apparently they need to make sure my chin and head do not move one millimeter when the radiation starts. In very short time the blanket started to shrink and harden and really pull my face down towards the bed. That was total sci-fi stuff! =) Now they have a fixation device moulded in my image to strap me down exactly like I was. On top of that they tattooed four dots on me for where the laser pointers had been. So I didn't manage to stay untattooed for the rest of my life after all.. They will take about one week to calculate the radiation dose with some physics geeks and try a simulation run next friday. The real radiotherapy starts on Monday (22/10).

Here's a slightly better picture of the facemask: