The Real Radiation Machine

This is my radiation machine:



First I get into one of those lovely hospital gowns before they take me into the radiation room. There I lay on the bed, grab the handles at the top, and shimmy myself down into the impression pillow of my upper body so that everything fits. Then the techs rubber band my feet and push a little here pull a little there so that I am all lined up with the coordinates for the radiation.

When they have my body all adjusted just the way they want, the techs leave the room (and tell me to wave at them if anything feels wrong).  The bed then slides up to the machine and does a little back and forth dance until it lines itself up correctly.

The arms on the machine lower themselves down and they rotate around. There is a little buzzing and beeping and the big round arm stops a little sideways of my chest and blasts in the radiation. The rotation and the radiation happens twice. Once The techs leave and the machine starts it takes about 10 minutes. I didn't feel a thing (except one of my arms went to sleep rom being above my head so long).

Modern Medicine is just amazing!

Getting Ready for Radiation

  This is the machine they used to map my esophagus on Monday. It looks an awful lot like my CT scanner, so I am not sure it is the machine that will deliver the radiation. If it is not, I will take a picture on Tuesday and add it to the blog.

  This is a mold of my upper body. it will make sure I am laying in the same place just the exact same way each time.  I got a third tattoo, too. They wrote all over my sides and chest with a sharpie and took pictures ... I am impressed with how precisely targetted the treatments will be.

I am supposed to reach up and grab the handles so my hands don't figit.  They also wrap my feet in a giant rubber band so my legs don't twitch. And then they will shoot me with radiation for about five minutes.

I start radiation the 18th with a dry run, just to make sure there are no problems. Then, beginning Wednesday the 19th  I will have the treatments Monday - Friday until June 5th.

It has been fun to be back to work and I appreciate all the kindness everyone has shown me! The radiation may cause a sunburn like effect, or it may not. It might cause me to have heart burn-like symptoms since it is my esophagus we are treating, but they have medicine to alleviate that, should it happen. Since the side-effects are so minor I asked for the last appointment of they day and that will allow me  to continue to work.

I am anxious and excited to see you all again! I hope you all have a lovely weekend and a Happy Easter!

Visit with Dr. Aye, March 29

Mark and I went to Seattle to meet with my surgeon, Dr. Aye last Wednesday. It was for my 6 week check-up after he removed my left lung.

If you will notice the right lung is a little bit larger than the left and it has 3 lobes, where the left only has 2. So, I got to keep the better lung, the "right" lung.

The heart sits a little back and between the 2 lungs. and the trachea comes partway down between the lungs. As with a lot of our organs and senses, when we lose one, often other things get stronger to compensate. For example; many blind people have heightened senses of smell and/or hearing. As a result of the little bits of exercise I have been able to do since coming home from the hospital, my right lung has increased a little in size. It has started to push the trachea and the heart a little left of center! Which is a good thing - one we will hope continues.

Dr. Lu and Dr. Aye want me to do radiation and we will meet with Dr. Lawenda on Friday the 7th to figure that out. I had those 2 tiny lymph nodes in my media-stenium in October. the cleaned them out when I had the media-stenectomy and they have not come back. But just in case there are tiny "seeds" of cancer hiding in there we will do radiation as a preventative measure.

Thank you to all of you who read and send me comments about this blog. Thank you for your texts, your cards, your visits, your good thoughts... I saw a commercial after the Gonzaga game that said the hardest part of fighting any cancer is your mentality. My doctors have said the same thing. Without your constant concern and keeping connected, Mark and I aren't sure we could have come this far, certainly it would have been much, much harder without you. Thank you.

I'll let you know how the radiation goes.

Filling up

This is me in the hospital.
One of the nice things about Swedish is they let the spouse stay in the room over night, if they want. Mark stayed with me the whole time on a roll-away bed. He helped monitor all the medicines they came in and gave me during the dark hours, he held my hand while they gave me hepperin shots in the abdomen at midnight every night, and his calm reassuring presence made everything way more bearable. I am not sure how much sleep he got and I feel bad about that, but I am sure grateful he was there!

I had the have my head elevated at 30 - 45 degrees as all times. I slept at this angle, as well as sat that way all day. Dr. Aye put up signs on my door and on my bed to make everyone aware. When some-ne asked if I wouldn't like to lie flatter and get some rest, Mark quickly stepped in the tell them the scoop.

The extra bed you see beside me in the room came every morning to take me down a few floors for x-rays. I did not know this before but, when you have something removed in your body (like half a lung) and it leaves an empty spot - a cavity, your body works to fill up that space. In cases like mine a viscous liquid, almost like a gel, forms and slowly fills the empty spot. They would x-ray every morning to check on the progress of the liquid and see how the fill was progressing.

I go see Dr. Lu on March 9th and go back to see Dr. Aye at Swedish March 29th. After that we will know definitively how things went and what what our next steps are.

We thank everyone who has come to visit and brought such good cheer! We continue to be thankful for all the food (and dessert :)), and all your prayers. Stay in touch, please. After this tough winter I hope spring will be easy and beautiful for all of you.

pneumonectomy

Hello, I am sorry it took me so long to update this blog. Here we go...

On Tuesday February 7 I had a pneumonectomy at Swedish Hospital in Seattle. Dr. Aye did the surgery, which started at 10:00 and was done at 5:00. A pneumonectomy is the removal of half the lung - in my case the entire left lung.

Often the surgeon will make a long incision that runs parallel to your spine in your back. Other times they will make a similiar incision in the front by spreading your ribs and perhaps cutting through the sternum. I was lucky; Dr. Aye approaches the lung through your side. I look like I had a shark bite on my left side but it has really healed nicely and quickly.

I spent a total of 8 days in the hospital. 3 days in ICU (plus one more about half way through). We are grateful to all the people at Swedish who took care of me, but I started whining about coming home Saturday. We had a couple of small set-backs, but I got to go to a hotel near the hospital on the 14th and come home on the 15th!

Like I said, the incisions have healed really well and after a couple of weeks the pain is really tolerable. I don't do well with narcotics; they depress me a little and give me nightmares. But, things are going so nicely that even though I could take up to 8 pills a day I am down to only 1 and a half!!

I do little breathing exercises several times a day and Mark and I walk for 10-20 minutes when we can. He had to go back to work this week so I will be inside walking on the treadmill now. Currently the walk winds me, but that won't be the case forever.

We want to thank everyone who has checked in by text, who has come to visit me, and who has brought food (what a blessing not to have to worry about what to eat everyday - and most of you are way better cooks that me!)  All the support has been good and powerful medicine.

Lung Re-section

I am a little wobbly this morning so I hope it all comes together and makes sense.

I had a chest X-Ray on Tuesday evening and then saw Dr. Lu on Wednesday morning. He says it appears that the tumor shrunk again with the third round of chemo I did in December. I had a CT scan Wednesday afternoon that should confirm that. That's good news.

Dr. Lu confirmed what Dr. Aye told us after the wedge; that spot on the right side did not look cancer-involved and Thursday afternoon one of Dr. Aye's PAs said the same thing. More great news!!

I am a little scared and wanted some time to settle into the idea of losing my left lung, but both Dr. Aye and Dr. Lu disagree. Dr. Lu said if I was his mom he would tell me to take the first possible date and get the cancer removed. Dr. Aye said "Let's get it out so you can go on with the rest of your life".

So, my lung resection will be at Swedish on February 7th.

Dr. Lu and Dr. Aye had a peer-to-peer conversation about the anatomy of the tumor. They are looking at where the blood vessels go to see if Dr. aye can do a lobectomy or if he has to take the entire left lung. He says its better that a 50% the whole left side will have to come out. I appreciate that that was a thoughtful decision.

As I know more, I will let you know. Thank you for hanging with me. Thank you for kind notes, funny and/or inspirational texts, and any small check-ins. Thanks to people like Amy and Dave who cleared massive amounts of snow from my driveway! Every contact bolsters my flagging courage and helps me believe I really can do this.

Thank you all!!

The Wedge

Mark and I traveled over to Seattle last week and I had the wedge surgery on Tuesday. It went well.

We checked into Swedish at 5:30 a.m. and they did the procedure about 7:30. The surgeons used small instruments that they controlled through a video monitor to cut out the wedge of lung and then retrieve it. It made the procedure much less invasive.
At the end they inserted a chest tube, The job of the tube is to help keep the lung inflated and  to drain anything like extra blood from the incisions. It stayed in until an hour before they discharged us on Wednesday.

 We spent one night in the hospital and Mark got to stay in the room with me. Everything went fine. I had very little pain at all and I am healing up really well.

We still do not know what the stuff is/was. But it is gone from my chest now.

Once again I want to thank those who continue to stay in touch with me; who send me tests, or e-mails, or comment on this blog. Some days that contact is what keeps me going. It certainly brightens any day that a friend gets in touch. I know you are all busy with your personal and professional lives, so your reaching out means the world to us! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!