Yesterday was our first trip back to Mass General since my hospitalization. The place is truly massive. My oncologist here calls it The Mothership and that truly makes sense. I had to be wheeled around in a wheelchair because it would have been impossible for me to walk in my current condition.
The first stop was Interventional Pulmonary, to look over my PleurX site, which was looking rather unhappy on Friday. It healed up quite a bit over the weekend, but the big surprise is that they suggested taking it out because I was getting so little drainage. This is fantastic news, since every time I was getting drained, I had to take an opiate, which would fry me for the day. So one more opiate, one more drainage, and the PleurX is out! It is entirely possible that pleural effusions could come back at some other point in my treatment, but it’s best not to leave stuff directly plugged into the interior of your lungs if you’re not using it.
One other thing: one of the interventional pulmonologists walked us through a CT scan of my lungs from when I was hospitalized, and I could finally really see and understand how the cancer cells look different. They’re sort of networked. It may well be that they’re the cause of reduced lung capacity, even though the old papillary ones didn’t cause breathing problems. I have no idea what that means long term for recovery of lung function. One foot in front of the other.
The second stop was the head and neck cancer center, which was my first physical visit there. As you’d expect, the cancer center is always one of the nicest parts of the hospital–just like in Montreal. The experience is different from Montreal, though. My doctor here is a rockstar, and has a team of people working with her, which means I saw a nurse practitioner today. We had stopped my cancer meds on Sunday because Tylenol was no longer working for the fever. Unfortunately for me, before they conclude the chemo is causing the fever, they have to rule out lung infections and so I had another x-ray, looked at by another person who’s never seen my lungs before, and now I’m on yet another course of antibiotics. If there is no evidence of fever off the chemo by Weds, I start it up again, taking Tylenol half an hour before or after each dose. If that doesn’t work, I think the next line of defence to keep me on the chemo drugs but without fevers is steroids.
Carrie and I talked about dividing my days into sections, so rather than thinking of “good days” and “bad days” it’s really segments.
When I got home, I felt like walking a bit before going back upstairs and did a full block and back, which has been a goal for awhile. Achievement unlocked. I went upstairs (taking breaks) and then rested.
An hour later I was in the middle of another cyclical vomiting episode. The first one in awhile. I am still unsure of how to track what triggers them in specific. I tried the under-the-tongue dissolvable ondansetron and it did slow things down but not stop them completely. Half an Ativan finally shut it down. So next time I’ll go in first with Ativan. Then I took my temperature. 102.5. A-ha! I probably couldn’t digest the liquid I was drinking and maybe that’s what started it? So a round of Tylenol and Advil followed. I hate being this far inside my own body this much of the time but it’s not really optional.
A couple hours after that I was happily watching TV with Carrie, and I even got hungry, ate something real (lentil stew), and kept it down. Eventually I fell asleep in front of the TV and went to bed.
So yeah, sections.