Yeah! The pancreatitis that I originally came into the hospital for is fine now. In addition, the blood clots have been reduced in pain and the swelling has gone down so I am finally able to walk around like a normal person again!
Right around this same time of the pancreatitis clearing up, I started getting rip roaring pain through my right ribs. I was immediately taken to do another scan. Noting new showed on the scan except we did receive confirmation that the cancer mets were still prominent on my ribs.
From here, I was given two options:
1. Dr. W. recommended that I meet with a pain specialist to see about the possibilities of getting nerve blocking or some kind of shot that reduces pain near the origination site. The doc was able to get an appointment at 8am Monday with a clinic as an outpatient, meaning that I would be out of the hospital supposedly tonight which is not happening.
2. I met a radiologist who was a referral from my oncologist. He highly recommended that we start radiation therapy this week, possibly even starting Monday. This is traditionally done as an outpatient as well, but would be performed here at St. Joes.
Now because the radiation and Chemo both have nasty side effects, the docs try to reduce the amount as much as possible. This means that by keeping my chemo as scheduled -- would really increase my toxicity levels so the docs are recommending that we move the chemo to the following week.
So now I am basically sitting here in the hospital waiting to find out what the next steps are. The docs wanted to try to moderate the dilaudid (fast acting pain med) by the IV because I cannot take this home with me.
I do have the dilaudid in the pill form at home, but it is not has effective as the IV. We decided to give it a try tonight and have the IV as a back up in case the pain was too much and the pill was not effective in alleviating it. I took the dilaudid pill as directed and fell asleep. I woke up about an hour later with rip roaring pain through my right ribcage and burning through the sides and into my back. I immediately called the nurse for the IV meds. Oh well, it was worth a try. I guess I would have to try again later.
Shortly after, I felt nauseated again. It has been a busy day with lots of visitors and constant trips down to the healing garden to get fresh air and change of scenery from the small hospital room. I think the lack of sleep, heat from the sun, and energy expended on all of the people that had come by over the weekend was exhausting. I lay down and started taking nausea medicine. At this point it was too late. Within 30 minutes I threw up! Damn! What is causing this? I hate it when it comes out of the blue. I am also concerned about the side effects of the radiation.
Supposedly because it is in my lung, the side effects will be minimal. Mostly I will feel fatigue and it will make the side effects of the cancer more prominent. I don’t know much about it, but it sounds like the whole process is about 5 minutes and then you are done. Your skin feels like bad sunburn in the area where the radiation is directed. The hospital gives you some kind of medicine cream to put on the skin to help relieve some of the pain. Oh the joys of having this to look forward to!