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: