Palliative Radiation Therapy

Diary 20100521 Palliative Radiation Therapy

Julie completed five days of palliative radiation therapy. Palliative treatments are used to reduce pain and improve patients' quality of life. To palliate means to lessen the intensity of something. Many of the same techniques used to contain cancer also are used for palliation. By reducing the number of cancer cells, radiation treatments can ease pain, stop bleeding and relieve pressure, even when the cancer cannot be controlled.

Palliative radiation treatments can be especially helpful for cancer patients who have:

A cancer that has spread (metastasized) to the bones or brain.
A tumor that is pressing on the spinal cord and could affect the ability to walk or move.
A tumor that is making it hard to eat, breathe or have bowel movements.

The choice was made not to treat other tumors/lesions that were on her spinal column.

Julie is in good spirits, her walk is a little unsteady and she is still in some pain in her legs and butt. They are giving her some pain medicine and patches. She still tries to do some work around the house like laundry and she puts dishes away. She wants Olesia to take her to home-depot tomorrow to get birdseed and water softener salt that I let run out.

Called Into the Doctor's Office

Diary 20100514 Called Into the Doctor's Office

We sang along with my new XM radio on the way to the hospital, Norwegian Wood by the Beatles was the only real song we knew.  We faked the other ones. 

She made funny faces as I tried to take some pictures of her in her hospital bed for Facebook pictures.   She is in good spirits and trying to watch the news on tv using her touch screen screen.   She has already crashed it a couple of times and I am sure would prefer an old fashion tv.  She can even do Internet.

Well, the news is that she has a tumor on her spinal column, looks about the diameter of a quarter.  It is about half way down the her spinal column and it is blocking the function of her bladder, bowels, and her lower legs.  They are going to put her on massive steroids for 48 hours, do some maintenance work, and start her on radiation treatment on Monday.  They also plan to do more MRI, bone scans,  etc. to make sure the one tumor they found last night is the only one.  

The hospital, Christiana Center in Newwark, DE, is about 30 minutes from my house.  It is the same hospital that my old boss, Rick Corbett, was in about four years ago.  His was not a happy ending.  But, it is about as modern as cancer hospitals go.  

Of course, modern hospitals still only have one way communication, it comes from the doctor the patient.  Julie is hungry, but is not allowed to eat because the doctor hasn't authorized food.  Probably because she doesn't know that Julie hasn't eaten.  If we had of eaten on our way over her, then it would have been okay.  So, modern hospitals suffer from top down communications just like in the old days.   No way to communicate to the doctor to tell her that Julie is hungry.  So, I am not impressed with brilliance of this place if they can't get two way communications going.  It is a little thing that she is hungry, which she takes in good graces, but it bothers me.  I want to eat but feel guilty doing so, so I don't.

I have to get home and walk the dog soon, feed the cats, etc.  Cook a sausage dish that Julie started and didn't finish that's sitting on the counter.   Yea, I am babbling and not dealing with the real thoughts going through my head.  My younger daughter called and said she was praying for mom.  She has a sinus infection which has spread into her eyes.  She is always sick with something, not a well person.

Julie sent me home.  One hail of a thunderstorm, biggest I've seen in forever, the kind that breaks your windshield on the highway, almost.  Ashton, our Jack Russell,  had got his chain tangled up and was just sitting in a down pour.  Most of the time when I leave him I just leave him on his on recognizance since he is honest and trust worthy.  We have no fence, he just knows our yard.  Although he does chase bunnies, herons and crows across property lines.  He knows we do not like herons because they eat our pond fish and he decided on his own that crows are not to be trusted either.  Large black birds are okay.  They don't go caw, caw, which Ashton takes as an insult.   He also tells me they eat fish. 

Oldest daughter texted me that she cried at my text message.  And, they got Julie food at the hospital since the doctor visited and two way communications were temporarily restored.  Its going to be a long night for Julie, she is in some discomfort.  A few or more screw drivers will be my best friend with Ashton now sleeping beside me.  He helped me eat a chicken.  I don't have to eat by the rules when Julie is not here.  I usually just eat the first thing I see, it is a simple system and the same system that a bear uses.   My son argues that I do not eat everything that a bear eats, but the jury is still out on this one.  I am willing to adapt with some lessons from a bear.  Whow, a chick can make you full; Ashton is out of it.  More later.

MRI Stat at 10 PM Tonight

Diary 20100513  MRI Stat at 10 pm tonight


It has seemed kind of like a magic time.  Herceptan keeping the cancer out of her body and Tykerb keeping it out of her brain.  It was easy to forget that the doctors told us that that they could only contain it for awhile.

Shortly after going on Liptor a month ago a series of problems started with Julie, probably not related to Lipitor, but an unneeded prescription anyway.  If she lives long enough to have a cholesterol problem, then everything has gone great. Over the last three weeks some symptoms have sprung forth very rapidly in retrospect.   

Julie has pain and numbness of her legs below her knees. Her sciatic nerve hurts on both legs.  She has lost control of her bladder (inconstancy) and is constipated.  She says it feels like there is a golf ball side lump inside her rectum and she has lost feelings in both the butt and groin area.   Her walking as become hobbled and her balance unsteady.  
Dr. Hosford, her oncologist examined her this morning, and sent her for an MRI STAT.  The earliest they can get her in is 10 pm tonight.  So, it will probably be sometime before noon before tomorrow we hear the results.  Dr. Hosford called her tonight asking when the MRI was scheduled.  She is a good doctor and a good person.

Pushing Back the Wind 

When I was a teenager, my dad, a heavy smoker, had several heart attacks before the last one got him.  He worked as a mechanic one block from our house.  My younger brother already as tall as my dad, about 5'7", was visiting the shop he worked at behind a Texaco.  Dad was having trouble breathing and felt weak.  He waited until quiting time and headed home, walking as usual.

In West Texas they have some horrific wind storms, the sky full of red dirt, the sand tearing at any exposed skin, wind gusts up to 60 mph are not unusual.   Well, this was in the day before all the paved streets and for those of us that lived on the edge of the desert, close to where primitive life had gone on for millenniums.   Well, this storm as I remember was not this severe, just your average West Texas wind storm.

My dad and brother started home and it became clear that my dad could not make it against the wind.  My dad and brother both told me the story at different times.  My brother, Alex, moved in front of dad without being asked and slowed his pace way down knowing my dad was unlike to admit that he needed help.  At a snail's pace they worked their way home without speaking.  When my dad got home, he drove himself to the doctor's who admitted him to the hospital for a couple of weeks to recover from a significant heart attack.

Yesterday, we had relatives visiting,  my wife's brother, sister-in-law, their daughter about twelve and their son about eight.   My youngest daughter and I had a great talk while I burned up the hamburgers and asparagus.  She is having problems with depression and pointed out that she has some of the great empathy with others like I do.  It was a compliment on her part, but it lead into a discussion on how hard it is for her to manage her feelings the pain she feels all the time.  As I listen I learned again that her emotional makeup is very similar to mine.  Difference is, she is on a much steeper learning curve at 21 than I every was and she has really poor health.  The end result is that she is clinically depressed and she is dropping out of college.

After the barbecue we did the traditional everyone walk the dog around the block event, all eight of us plus the dog of course.  The two cats declined.   The wind was gusty, the type that  often comes before a thunderstorm.  I was worried about Julie going, she seemed tired to me, but she said she was fine.   It is about a mile around, a comfortable walk for a healthy person.  Julie walked very slow from the beginning, her brother Rich and I stayed back with her.  Ashton, the dog, made periodic journeys between the two groups to see that everyone was okay.  About half way around I moved over and took her hand.  It was then obvious to me how much she was struggling. We held hands letting her put as much weight as her right arm as my left arm would bear.  

The front group had slowed down and come back to us.  I didn't see when Olesia, my youngest daughter, moved in beside her mom, but there she was holding her mom's left hand in her two hands, struggling with the weight of her mom as Julie moved forward slowing with time.  The rest of the group was around us talking and laughing and having a good time.  Julie never said a word and no one in the group knew she was struggling except for Olesia and I.   She never told me, she wouldn't even tell me, but I believe her calves were cramping up and it had become very painful to walk.  We got back to the house, Julie and Jill, the sister-in-law, went inside and I turned on the gas fire place.

The rest of went out side and played hide-and-seek in the dark in the back yard.  Ashton helped the seeker find select people, mostly me and my older daughter, Allison.   You can't really hide from a dog in the back yard, even in the dark.

The walk around the block is an event that Olesia will remember the rest of her life.   It seems a small moment in the unfolding of her life, but an important one.  She noticed when almost no one else did that someone was struggling and reached in and helped without saying anything.  It wasn't about her hurting, which she is, but about someone else needing her help, someone that is too proud to ask for help. 

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