Thursday, February 4, 2010

I have survived the first round of chemoembolization!  There was nothing about it that was fun or enjoyable and I truly thought I was dying.  During my flat-on-my-back six-to-eight hour recovery afterward, I told Danny I thought we had made a mistake going through the process.  Here's how that day went:

Danny and I arrived at Baptist Medical Center at our scheduled 7:00 a.m. and hung out until 10:00 a.m. when I was taken to a temporary room to wait for my procedure.  The caregiver assigned to me about blew up my left arm taking my blood pressure...literally.  It became more and more painful as the cuff continued to pump up and up, and I finally jerked the cuff off when my arm turned nearly black.  She finally got a different piece of equipment, and things went much better after that.  Next came the IV...fortunately, my nurse didn't have a big ego and when I explained to her my difficulty with having IV's inserted, she turned me over to Daniel Smith, who was absolutely wonderful.

My procedure was scheduled for 1:00 p.m., but the holding room was absolutely packed and it was well after 5:00 before I was taken in.  At that point I had a panic attack, and fortunately the drugs got me through it.  There was some issue with the left lobe of my liver (Danny explained it to me, but I can't remember  what he said) so it took about twice as long as the radiologist anticipated.  Hopefully that's why my recovery has been so tough, and the next 2 rounds won't be as bad.

I had an appointment with Dr. Chohan on Feb. 3 and she seemed to think things were progressing normally.  She thought I would be able to return to work on Monday the 8th, which didn't happen.  I was still having nausea and daily chills and fever.  A week later, I called Dr. Lee's office and described my symptoms and he thought I should give it a couple more days.  Forty-five minutes later, he called me (after having conferred with his partner) and wanted me to go to Baptist for a CT scan to make sure the tumors hadn't abcessed.  I wasn't supposed to drive in case they had to drain the tumors, so I was in a pickle...Danny was out by Enid and Jess was going to be the only person at work that day, so fortunately cousin Kyle was available to take me.  Since they were going to work me in, I insisted he didn't need to stay with me because Danny would be there in a couple of hours.  I have never been worked in so quickly in my life!  Plus, (fortunately) I had no abcesses, so I was good to go a good hour before Danny would be there to get me.  So, Danny called Kyle who graciously came back to pick me up.  (Thank you so very much!!)

Dr. Lee gave me a prescription for Naproxen to nip the daily chills and fever in the bud, which did the trick.  I decided to bite the bullet and go to school for 2 hours on Friday, Feb. 12, which went OK except for the fact that I was totally exhausted by the time those 2 hours were over.  Monday the 15th was staff development, so I went in for 3 hours to work on grading.  That went a little better.  On Tuesday, I went in for 4th, 5th and 6th hours, which wasn't a good idea.  By the time I went in, my energy level had dropped and it was a struggle to make it through.  So, for the rest of the week, I will be working 2nd, 3rd and 4th hours, and I think that will be better.

Thursday the 11th, I went to Dr. Chohan's office to get my 2nd Sandostatin injection.  Since the embolization, I haven't had any flushing, so I'm really excited for that.  My biggest issue is that my heart hurts, and I take Pepcid twice a day.  Food still has little flavor for the most part, and the thought of some foods, drinks, smells and activities make me nauseous.  It's really weird.

My next procedure will be on Thursday, February 25, report time 7:00 a.m., procedure at 1:00.  Yeah, right!