The past couple of days have been a whirlwind of activity. Thursday of last week I had some blood work, Friday I had a CT-guided biopsy, and Saturday I had a PET scan.
Then the waiting. I got the results of the PET scan on Monday, but the biopsy report didn't come until Tuesday. I had to postpone my oncologist appointment until later in the morning so that we had something to work with.
In little more than a day since coming out of that visit, I got a second opinion with an oncologist at CPMPC in SF, found time to get a haircut, and packed some things up and got admitted to the hospital.
Why a haircut you might ask? It does seem a little silly, since in a matter of weeks I'm going to lose all of my hair. But my hair had gotten so unmangeable, because I had been putting off a number of things that I really should have done (also going to the dentist) because of how bad I was feeling. So I think it is making me happier to have more manageable hair in the interim. And it will be a little less crazy when it starts falling out. I just went to a cheap place as a walkin and said part it on the side, very short. I think it's the fastest haircut I've ever had. Not quite a buzz cut, but not that far from it.
Last night was a bit mixed. Lorien came in along with Dylan to see me admitted, then went home to put him to bed. She came back later (sans Dylan -- thanks Erin for the babysitting!) to keep me company. I had been feeling okay, but then shortly before she was going to leave I had been trying to go to the bathroom and started to feel dizzy. Lorien was trying to help me back to the bed when I passed out. Which of course then led to a flurry of activity by the staff here, and both Lorien's departure and my bed time got pushed back quite a bit. Ultimately I got a decent night's sleep with the help of pharmaceuticals (probably the best sleep I've had in a while), but beforehand my chest was pounding, my heart was racing, I was having trouble breathing, and although I kept needing to cough, I could barely get anything out. It really sucked. The past couple of nights at home had been getting progressively worse. I'm beggining to think that I may have gotted admitted just in the nick of time.
Today overall has been much better. I've been poked and prodded and wheeled around for various tests. So far I've had a bone marrow biopsy, which was the worst part. Damn that was not pleasant. Jg, I can only wonder, is a transplant orders of magnitude worse? After that I had an echocardigram (I was wrong before when I said EKG), and an ultrasound. Later will come a portacath placement -- where they basically put a port in me that's going to stay in for the duration of treatment (so like 6 months) that they'll use to administer chemo (and I think anything and everything else they want to give me). The worst part of waiting for that is that it's a surgical procedure and I can't eat or drink anything until it happens. And the best time estimate I've gotten so far is 2:30 PM. So I'm sitting here watching the clock, blogging, and listening to Bob Dylan. (I'm so glad I loaded up the laptop with music.) Finally I'm also supposed to get an MRI, although I think that might be the hardest to schedule, and the least time sensitive, so that might get pushed to another day.
More on what's in store for me, like the chemo, later. I'm starting to get a headache and need to take a little break. I got a low dose of morphine earlier in the day. It wasn't really enough to get high off of, but it did take the edge off of things, make me relaxed, and best of all, the coughing was almost entirely gone. I'm trying to persuade them to give me some more.
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