Well the chemo is certainly kicking in. The side effects are raising thier ugly heads. Constantly tired, guts turning and the overall feeling of "blah". Add to that the 2 focal seizures I've had in 3 days.....what a party!
Since the seizures are happening, I've decided to start taking the steroid this morning that was prescribed for me. I was hoping to keep away from it by just using over the counter meds, but I guess not. The steroid will hopefully reduce the brain swelling, and in turn, hopefully reduce or eliminate any further seizures. Not to mention, I do not want to have my license pulled again, so I will just endure the rotten side effects of all these new meds.
Thank you to all of my cheering squad. With any luck, I'll see you at the finish line :)
Ed
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Angela Apr 10/2011 Day 53
Good morning
Good news with Angela, there is a possibility she may be leaving the ICU as soon as Monday!! Angela has made progress in leaps and bounds over the past week. It is her youngest son's birthday today so we are taking him to see Angela and then a little get-together at Shirley's house.
There still seems to be some confusion with certain things but hopefully, once out of the ICU environment, she can shake those cobwebs off and get back to living!!
Good news with Angela, there is a possibility she may be leaving the ICU as soon as Monday!! Angela has made progress in leaps and bounds over the past week. It is her youngest son's birthday today so we are taking him to see Angela and then a little get-together at Shirley's house.
There still seems to be some confusion with certain things but hopefully, once out of the ICU environment, she can shake those cobwebs off and get back to living!!
Friday, April 8, 2011
Here we go again.........
Now that Angela is on the mend, I feel the time is right to update you all on my situation......
I have known since Feb 28th that unfortunately, I have not one, but two cancerous brain tumours growing again.I chose to keep this quiet and only share the information with a few close friends until my Oncologist came up with a treatment for me. I did not want to burden the family with MORE bad news during the crisis with Angela but now that I have a treatment plan and the side effects are becoming more apparent, I felt last night was the best time (like there is a best time!) to let the family know and now, the rest of my circle of friends.
A few months ago, I noticed my usual morning headaches were lasting longer, even after take some pain relief medication for them. This has continued and gradually the headaches have become 24/7.
I had a brain scan in late October of last year which came back clean. My next scan was in early February of this year and it showed two growths. One was at the base of where they removed the last tumour and the second, larger one, is quite deep in the brain. So with this news, we did another scan in early March with a different type of contrast dye to confirm whether or not they were in fact tumours. Unfortunately, the test came back positive for brain tumours. ( There was a possibility that the growths could have been benign and/or scar tissue)
The results of the February scan showed the deep tumour to be 1.7cm and the smaller tumour was barely noticeable. After the March scan, the tumours had both grown significantly. The deep tumour had grown to 2.6cm and the smaller one had now grown to 1.6cm. With the results showing that both tumours were acting aggressively, we had to come up with a plan. There were 2 choices really.........surgery or chemo. After discussion with my Doc, it has been deemed that surgery will only be done as a last resort due to the depth of the one tumour. He had consulted with my previous surgeon at University Hospital and he said that with the depth of the tumour, just getting at it without causing more damage (i.e. total left side paralysis and/or blindness) was extremely risky.
With that being said, I have opted to go through chemo for 28 days using the oral chemo I had last time (Temodal). It didn't really work last time, but it is the best on the market and who knows, maybe my body chemistry has changed and will allow it to do the fighting this time. After the 28 days of chemo, I will follow up with the Cancer Clinic and have another MRI shortly after to see if the chemo is doing the job or not. There are other chemo treatments out there that I can try after this, although they have not had the success rate that Temodol has.
I am also to have to resign to the fact soon I think, that I will have to start taking the steroid I was prescribed also. I hate the side effects of the steroids but I guess if the brain swelling continues, I'll have no choice. So if I'm a grouchy bear over the next while, its due to the steroids and chemo :/
I asked my Oncologist what his true thoughts were on my prognosis now, given that the tumours are back. His words to me were...."well with any luck, hopefully we can keep these at bay for 6 months to a year. I obviously will take this information with a grain of salt. I beat the odds last time, and it is my intention to do it again. My biggest fear is that I am now fighting 2 tumours as opposed to 1 like last time.
I will fight the fight as I did before....but with even more determination in memory of the close friends I have lost to the cancer battle over the past couple of years.
PS: CANCER SUX!
Ed
I have known since Feb 28th that unfortunately, I have not one, but two cancerous brain tumours growing again.I chose to keep this quiet and only share the information with a few close friends until my Oncologist came up with a treatment for me. I did not want to burden the family with MORE bad news during the crisis with Angela but now that I have a treatment plan and the side effects are becoming more apparent, I felt last night was the best time (like there is a best time!) to let the family know and now, the rest of my circle of friends.
A few months ago, I noticed my usual morning headaches were lasting longer, even after take some pain relief medication for them. This has continued and gradually the headaches have become 24/7.
I had a brain scan in late October of last year which came back clean. My next scan was in early February of this year and it showed two growths. One was at the base of where they removed the last tumour and the second, larger one, is quite deep in the brain. So with this news, we did another scan in early March with a different type of contrast dye to confirm whether or not they were in fact tumours. Unfortunately, the test came back positive for brain tumours. ( There was a possibility that the growths could have been benign and/or scar tissue)
The results of the February scan showed the deep tumour to be 1.7cm and the smaller tumour was barely noticeable. After the March scan, the tumours had both grown significantly. The deep tumour had grown to 2.6cm and the smaller one had now grown to 1.6cm. With the results showing that both tumours were acting aggressively, we had to come up with a plan. There were 2 choices really.........surgery or chemo. After discussion with my Doc, it has been deemed that surgery will only be done as a last resort due to the depth of the one tumour. He had consulted with my previous surgeon at University Hospital and he said that with the depth of the tumour, just getting at it without causing more damage (i.e. total left side paralysis and/or blindness) was extremely risky.
With that being said, I have opted to go through chemo for 28 days using the oral chemo I had last time (Temodal). It didn't really work last time, but it is the best on the market and who knows, maybe my body chemistry has changed and will allow it to do the fighting this time. After the 28 days of chemo, I will follow up with the Cancer Clinic and have another MRI shortly after to see if the chemo is doing the job or not. There are other chemo treatments out there that I can try after this, although they have not had the success rate that Temodol has.
I am also to have to resign to the fact soon I think, that I will have to start taking the steroid I was prescribed also. I hate the side effects of the steroids but I guess if the brain swelling continues, I'll have no choice. So if I'm a grouchy bear over the next while, its due to the steroids and chemo :/
I asked my Oncologist what his true thoughts were on my prognosis now, given that the tumours are back. His words to me were...."well with any luck, hopefully we can keep these at bay for 6 months to a year. I obviously will take this information with a grain of salt. I beat the odds last time, and it is my intention to do it again. My biggest fear is that I am now fighting 2 tumours as opposed to 1 like last time.
I will fight the fight as I did before....but with even more determination in memory of the close friends I have lost to the cancer battle over the past couple of years.
PS: CANCER SUX!
Ed
Angela Apr. 8/2011 Day 51
Well some good news with Angela. She must have passed her "swallow test" today. Karen called me from the hospital and told me she was actually feeding Angela some soft foods and Popsicles etc. Yeah, WOW is the word. :) Let the progress continue!!!!! :)
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Angela April 6/2011 Day 49
Hard to beleive that Angela will have been in the ICU for 50 days tomorrow!! UGH
Myself, Mom and Shirley went to visit her earlier this evening and she seemed in better spirits. We rubbed her feet and back and almost put her to sleep. lol They inserted the tube today, directly into her stomach and bowels for the nutrition bag. She still has one tube in her nose but does not seem as bothered by it now.
On Friday, they are going to try a swallow test, where they will introduce a soft food and see if she is able to swallow it and monitor her throat etc during the test. If all goes well, hopefully she may be able to have some REAL food next week (or even Friday if the testing goes well) I think things are slowly coming together for Angela now. Lets hope and pray the progress continues!
Myself, Mom and Shirley went to visit her earlier this evening and she seemed in better spirits. We rubbed her feet and back and almost put her to sleep. lol They inserted the tube today, directly into her stomach and bowels for the nutrition bag. She still has one tube in her nose but does not seem as bothered by it now.
On Friday, they are going to try a swallow test, where they will introduce a soft food and see if she is able to swallow it and monitor her throat etc during the test. If all goes well, hopefully she may be able to have some REAL food next week (or even Friday if the testing goes well) I think things are slowly coming together for Angela now. Lets hope and pray the progress continues!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Angela Apr. 5/11 Day 48
Not much change in Angela since my last post. She has been pulling the feed and waste tubes out of her nostrils quite a bit lately (mostly on purpose according to the nurses) so tomorrow they are running direct lines into her stomach area for both tubes. It is too dangerous for the tubes to be continually pulled out as well as a lengthy x-ray procedure to re-insert them.
Angela has shown some confusion in some areas as well over the past few days. She thinks she has five children (only has 3) as well as a couple of other things. This could be the ICU psychosis I talked of earlier or perhaps something else.
Ang has not been very talkative lately during visits either. :(
Angela has shown some confusion in some areas as well over the past few days. She thinks she has five children (only has 3) as well as a couple of other things. This could be the ICU psychosis I talked of earlier or perhaps something else.
Ang has not been very talkative lately during visits either. :(
Friday, April 1, 2011
Angela Apr. 1/11 9pm Day 44
Shirley and I visited Angela earlier this evening and she has shown a fair bit of improvement since yesterday. I would say she is about 90% aware of her surroundings again and was able to mouth some words. I think Angela also realizes how much of a step back she had taken as she was quite emotional. Such a heart-wrenching sight to see. They have moved her from one on one care to the extended ICU again so that in itself is positive news :)
Again, she still has a very long road to recovery ahead of her and we still do not know what her capabilities will be. Hoping for some more progress over the weekend and with any luck, she will be back on track to where she was before the latest setback.
Again, she still has a very long road to recovery ahead of her and we still do not know what her capabilities will be. Hoping for some more progress over the weekend and with any luck, she will be back on track to where she was before the latest setback.
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