Where's Waldo Part II

Last Sunday and Monday were probably the lowest point of the treatment so far. As I mentioned the way radiation works is it starts like a freight train. Slow at first but each treatment adds momentum. Once its over you still have the momentum to deal with.

Sue did call the medical oncologist on Sunday and they prescribed a antibiotic in case I was coming down with something. The hardest part of dealing with the down days is the ripple effect if I don't keep up with the PEG tube feedings and medicine. Then the energy level starts to drop even more. Sunday was a rough day and my primary goal was to keep up with the feedings and medicine. That alone becomes and interesting timing challenge. One thing the doctor suggested to help with the mucus was sudafed. Sue went to the pharmacy at Tops to pick up the antibiotic prescription and the pharmacist gave her a bit of a hard time about getting the "real" sudafed. (For those of you that don't know they reformulated it due to the meth heads using it to make crystal meth.) You can still get the real stuff but it is controlled behind the counter at the pharmacy and they scan your drivers license number. Either Tops didn't have it or the pharmacist didn't know what he was talking about but he directed her to a over the counter version. In his defense Sudafed has done a good job obscuring the labels so the new formulations appear to be very similar to the old stuff. I can tell you from experience that the two are nothing alike in results.

So Sunday the goal was just to lay low and endure the situation. On Monday morning I felt a bit better and didn't see the need to go the doctors office. I already had all the prescriptions I needed and I wasn't sure I was up to the trip. Also we have a regular appointment with them on Thursday. Then much to our surprise the doctor called us at home that morning to see how I was doing and ask that I get some lab work done and come in for a visit. They were closing at noon that day and would be closed on Christmas so he wanted to make sure I was set. Bonus points for the medical oncologist. This time the blood work was a bit more involved than the normal take a tube to check cell counts. The did that but also took two separate samples from each arm to check for other stuff as well.

We met with the doctor and it turns out I have yet another side effect from the chemo. It appears that I have urinary tract infection. Basically it means that I have the urgent need to go to the bathroom on a regular basis but most of the time its a false alarm. (There is more to it than that but I will leave that up to your imagination. :-)) We should find out more about that when we meet with the doctor tomorrow.

On Christmas I started to feel a bit better. I was able to get up and unwrap presents with the family and play some video games during the day. The biggest distraction is the urinary tract infection. It is very disruptive (not to mention uncomfortable :-)) and doesn't let you get much sleep at night.

On Wednesday I definitely started to feel a bit better though the infection was still there. The antibiotics I am on should be helping that soon I hope. My guess is that I have bottomed out from the radiation and should start the road to recovery from that phase soon. Tomorrow we meet with the medical oncologist and aside from going over the rest of the chemo schedule I want to get his take on how the treatment is progressing. I will post another entry after the visit.