Seven Down Two to Go

I'm pretty beat-up and bloody from a long tough day yesterday. And I'm happy about it.

Yesterday I went through another Gamma Knife radiation treatment to the brain. It was a very long day. I think the hospital is going to start having to give me a time card.

First a big, HUGE, thank you to Barb, my wife, and Susan, her Mom, for getting me in there and waiting all day for me to be done. I just can't thank them enough.

The radiation/oncologist called me Friday and told me he had seen four tumors that should be treated "sooner rather than later." Yesterday after in-depth study of an MRI of the brain done with double contrast dye, the radiation team decided there were actually nine tumors.

Seven were treated yesterday. Two will be treated in two-weeks. They held off on the remaining two because they were on the opposite side of the head as the rest, and I have a big head I'm told.

In all honesty, the worst parts about the procedure are having a metal frame attached to your skull and laying in one position inside a machine for such a duration of time.

By the end of the day I couldn't sit up without assistance. My lower back was just burning and aching from being in one position for hours on end.

When the screws finally came out from my skull and the frame was detached I started bleeding. The nurses rushed to stop the flow, but it was already all over my shirt.

I came home exhausted. I took a pain killer and fell to sleep in the Lay-Z-Boy. I decided that it would be best if I just stayed in the living room for the night. I was in enough pain I knew that I would only be flopping around in bed keeping Barb awake. And since they can't put Band-aids on the back of my head because of all the hair, I was still slowly seeping blood.

I've been carrying an old towel around all night to protect the furniture. Setting it wherever my head may go. I've been sleeping for a few hours, and then I'm up for a few hours, and that pattern will probably remain through tomorrow.

Washing the hair in the morning is going to be an interesting endeavor. I can already picture the grimace on my face.

Ugh. I feel like somebody hit me with a baseball bat, and I have the lumps on my head to prove it.

But I will just suck it up and deal with it. It is all good. I was feeling so strong and so great through May and June. Then the chemo stopped working and the cancer ran wild. Yesterday was a necessary step towards getting back to feeling strong again.

Cancer has no idea what kind of guy it picked on.