Friday, March 13, 2009

Another challenge

Well, today I got up and got ready to go to the Seattle Cancer and Wellness ,where I will be doing the next step of my treatment. They just moved from Seattle to actually Kent, to a brand new building. It is much bigger and very modern, it was wonderful. My Doctor is a great lady and very supportive of our choices and decisions. That is exactly what the Center is all about ...treating the individual patient, instead of the disease! I liked that concept from the beginning. We weighed all the choices and talked about my body and where we needed to go from here. I think it really boosted my spirits to finally have a GAME PLAN, and get started on the rest of my fight against cancer. Much of it will be a LIFE long choices and daily discipline but... I am going to do it.

I also brought in the gifts that Chris and I have been working on for Cancer patients, Dr. Lewis loved them and asked me when I felt better to please come and present them to her and her staff, so that maybe we could get them into the gift center there. I was so excited when I left, I had my GAME PLAN and also someone who was wanted to help promote these gifts for the patients. I know that there needs to be more things out there for these sweet women and their families who have to fight cancer, if we can make something to help comfort and aide them in their healing, then ...we should do it.

One thing that I think has been making me feel so down the last couple of days, is that I haven't felt very good. I have had my radiation area really itching and swelling some and then this morning when I got up I had a rash that is spreading. The sores look infected and I wasn't sure what to think? My Doctor at the Cancer Center thought it might be a type of Heat Rash that has just gotten infected but she told me to go back to the hospital and have the Oncologist there look at it, since I just finished my treatment last week.

So after we got home Jeff dropped me off and I got in to see the Doctor. He and the nurse both looked really perplexed at my skin. They weren't sure if it is an allergic reaction or what, but it did look like the whole area is getting infected and that concerned them. Their first line of defense was to have me get Hydrocortisone cream on it, plus take an antibiotic in case there is an infection in the chest wall. I suggested that I would like the try the cream for a day or so first before starting the antibiotic. They are tough on my stomach,plus I want to know if the cream will work first. The Dr. was funny when I suggested that, he disagreed and then in mid sentence stopped and said "Well it is your body and you can decide what you want to do " So we compromised. I am so sure that he just shakes his head when I leave and thinks....."POT STIRER"! I just don't want to overkill if the simplest thing will work first. Sometimes too, if you do too many things at once then you aren't for sure what really did work.

So I am home bound for a few more days, need to let the area have as much air as possible; that wouldn't be a big deal if I lived on a island by myself but... I don't, so I will just have to wear real baggy clothes and hope that not too many people have to see me :) This whole thing has been tough on my self esteem...yikes.

Well, it is my date night and I need to go to the movies with Jeff ( Downstairs!). Thanks for all of you love and support. I will conquer this some how. Have a great night.

 

"If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream."  ___Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you , they're supposed to help you discover who you are."    ___Bernice Johnson Reagan

1 comment:

Brandee Leafty said...

I really want to help in any way possible to make those gifts that you spoke about! Please let me know how I can... Your truthfulness about the good and bad is a breath of fresh air!! Thanks!!