I Whip My Health Back and Forth! I Whip My Health Back and Forth!

Well, 2010 isn't through screwing with me, I guess.

I'd had this poking pain in my right side all weekend, sometimes at intervals of 30 - 40 seconds apart (it got so bad I was timing them like contractions) and on Monday the intervals were much shorter and the pain was enough to take my breath and make standing upright exhausting. So I called the doctor to ask if there was anything on the PET scan that could be causing it. He called back at 5:30 that night and said that there wasn't anything in that particular spot, but there were plenty of other things in the scan to worry about.

Progression happened again. New spots on my shoulders, clavicle, and both femurs, which gave the doctor some concern because, he said, those are supporting bones meant to hold up my upper body. We can't risk having them break. Great ... time to get the cane out again. More spots on my spine too. Man. I got shot in the ass for 3 months for this???

So he schedules a bone marrow biopsy for Thursday because this means chemo and chemo means trying to somehow increase my platelet count to accommodate the infusions. This means getting some junk called Nplate before getting chemo, but I have to get the biopsy before I start the Nplate.

In the meantime, the pain is now excrutiating on the right side so cousin/roommate and I go to Urgent Care on Tuesday night, me thinking it's maybe gall stones or something non-cancer. What do they say? They say "You look like you're in agony," like this is a surprise. Well, schaaah der I'm in agony. Why else would I be here? But they can't find anything on x-rays, so the UC doc takes a look at the PET scan with another radiologist and they see something that "might be a slight lesion" on my ribs over there. That's as good as I get, which boils down to "you'll just have to deal with it like the other spots." They shoot me full of dilaudid (which always makes me think of Drugstore Cowboy) and send me home. Dilaudid wears off leaving me seriously constipated (yep, I said it) and back in agony.

Thursday morning I get the biopsy. Friends, the cousin/roommate was my hero. He held my hand through the whole thing. I probably would have fainted. He said it was pretty gnarly and that bone marrow looks a little like a smoothie. eeeeeuuuuw cool.

And now I wait. If the results come back good I start an infusion of Nplate for the platelets and then my choice of Abraxane (hair falls out) or Xeloda (skin peels on my hands and feet); or they find leukemia or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and I get Rituxan (flu-like feeling ... not bad on the side-effects compared to the others); or, worse-case, I have myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and chemo will be "dangerous" in the doctor's words and Nplate, as the literature says "may worsen your cancer or condition and may cause you to die sooner." (!)

So, remember, we don't want MDS. MDS = bad.

I have a lot to read over the next few days and a lot of things to think about. But I'm going to sleep through most of it because it makes me tired, although I'm hoping steroid euphoria will carry over into a New Year's Eve visit with friends. But mostly I've got to figure out what kind of changes this will have on my day-to-day life. Am I going to be doped up on percocet forever? Maybe so. Do I pick the chemo where I lose my hair or the one where I have sunburn-like peels on my hands and feet and is that a choice?? Gee whiz.

Anyway, if you call me and I don't answer, it's probably because I'm sleeping. Cousin/roommate is also recharging his batteries this weekend. We're going to start the hard part now and it's going to require more energy than we have. I don't know where we'll find the resources, but since we don't have a choice, we'll just have to dig it up somewhere and deal with it.

Flippin' 2010.
Get out of here already.