Just when I thought I had reached my limit on pain, a new challenge arrived to overcome.  As people have tried to contact me lately know, I have been unable to return emails or even pick up the phone.  The reduction in pain meds has caused me to go through withdrawls.  I have experienced chills, nausea, shakes, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, etc.  Not a fun ride!  That was Wednesday night and all day Thursday.  Add to that another new hurdle...what happened was at 4:00 Friday morning, I was not able to urinate.  So starting at noon, Kath and I spend our time in the Emergency Room in Salem until 9:30 that night.  Those of you that thought you heard a loud siren were close enough to hear the screams as they inserted a catheter.  I cannot remember ever feeling pain like this!  My hope is that this will be removed on Monday.  Coping with withdrawls, the cough, and the catheter can try anyone's patience.  Wouldn't you know this would happen on a Friday!  Now we have to wait until Monday when we have to contact my primary care doctor and oncologist as soon as their offices open.  I'm looking forward to getting things straightened out.

Kath, Brad, and I spent our entire day at the Center for Health and Healing.  We started off by seeing my physical therapist.  Kath was shown how to massage my legs in an effort to reduce the edema.  Hopefully by reducing the swelling in my legs, the pain will not be nearly as bad!  After this appointment we went to the pain management doctor.  Good news here because he took the last of the steroids off my pill list and he decreased  another one of my pain meds!  He addressed the issue of my appetite.  A few days ago I lost my appetite and I have  not regained it.  I have water retention in my diaphragm.  Hopefully time will take care of this as I get my appetite back.  After this we hung out in the waiting room.  Around 1:00 Dr. Hung's nurse took us into the back where she took my weight.  This is where I knew how bad my water retention was.  I have put on over twenty pounds in under two weeks!!  Dr. Hung has decided to let my cough run its course. The x-ray showed nothing to be concerned about.  He also said that he will have me come back in six weeks to see how I feel.  This checkup will be based on how I do over the next six weeks.  If my condition is the same, great!  If it has gotten worse, then an MRI will be done.  So I hope that I stay the same over the next six weeks.  The key is to stay the same.  Even though my condition is not great, if it does not get worse, I will be happy.  That means that the tumor is not advancing!  Here is to the condition staying the same!!!  I will let you know how the next month is going!

I made it!!  Yesterday was my 25th and final radiation treatment!  Now it is the waiting game!  The hope is that I stay the same or improve over the next six weeks.  Then I will have an MRI to see what the radiation has done.  Again, I appreciate my friends more than I can say!  Thursday, Kath had reached her limit!  I was concerned that she could not drive safely to the hospital.  While I was worrying about what to do, I received an e-mail from Lynne Lindsay offering to drive any day!!  It was a gift!  So she drove me Friday and Barry stepped in and drove me Tuesday!  My friends have been such a blessing to us!!  Then I can not say enough about the people who work at OHSU!  I will not miss traveling each day to OHSU, but I will miss the people that work there.  They make a very stressful situation much easier to tolerate.  I will let you know how I am feeling over the next few weeks.  We meet with Dr. Hung in two weeks.  The only problem that I am having currently is a cough that is irritating.  When I cough, it causes pain to shoot through my left leg that hits a 10 on the pain scale!  Hopefully this will be taken care of by the meds I am on.  Kath gives me my medicine every eight hours.  I do not know how she does it!  I take around 20 to 25 pills a day!  She just smiles and  asks me if I would like to take the pills with water or chocolate milk!  I can not even begin to imagine trying to get through this without her!!

I just got home from radiation treatment number 20!  5 left to go!  Once those are completed, I will wait for six weeks before I get my MRI to check to see what effect the treatments have had.  Today's treatment went very smoothly and I still have no radiation burns, which is great!  It has been an up and down last few weeks, however.  On the difficult side, I have had an irritating cough that seems to start up in the late afternoon.  When I start coughing, pain shoots down my legs and hits a 10 on the pain scale!  The only way that I can control it is to sit quietly and not talk.  Good way to shut me up, I guess.  Another factor on the difficult side is that both of my legs are starting go swell up, often looking like tree trunks.  When this happens, again, the pain increases dramatically.  The final factor on the difficult side are issues involving the restroom.  I am either in there constantly or not there for days!  With that, we are experimenting with meds, since this is often a result of radiation treatments.  On the positive side, and it is a big positive, I was able to sit in the car facing forward all the way from my house to OHSU!  I did not have to be turned around in the seat, looking out the back!  Also thanks again for those of you that have driven me to OHSU the past month.  I hope you realize what a HUGE help that is for Kath and me!  Another check on the positive side is involving the medication that I am taking.  The doctors are cutting back on my steroids.  This is always a good sign!  I have been very active, trying to get out everyday.  I have had no change in my condition for the past two weeks, which is good.  I am just anxious to not be traveling to OHSU everyday.  I have worn out my chair at home that reclines to an angle that I can tolerate.  So after many trips with Barry, I have found one at Fred Meyer that works great.  So starting tomorrow, I will have a new chair at home to rest in!  I have also made Great Harvest on Commercial Street my regular stop after my daily radiation treatment.  The people there are wonderful and it helps lift my spirits after getting hit by radiation to start the day.  Just like teaching, it is all about building relationships!  This has become my socialization stop!  I not only know all the people that work there, I also constantly bump into people I know that stop by to get something to eat.  I really appreciate getting the chance to visit with people.  As long as I get out each day, get the chance to visit with people, and of course, eat, then my day was a success!