So, my follow up visit with Brigance went well enough that he's on board with some San Francisco treatment! Radiation and Chemo in the City by the Bay! Woo Hoo! Now, we just have to make that happen.
Doing so will take someone with indefatigable dialing and speaking skills, someone to whom no mere phone mortal may say NO--yes, that's right, Scott's going to be calling around UCSF to get me a consultation, and get this treatment plan set up. The urgency is predicated upon the cancer fixing recipe that 6-8 weeks after surgery, the follow up treatments have to begin for maximum efficacy. And that is what we want.
The bad news from yesterday is that there's still a trach tube in my neck--there's enough post surgical swelling in my airway that the doctor wants a secondary system during radiation treatment when swelling can further occur. And I can't disagree with that--much as I want to.
Yesterday, for all my whining, nobody gave me a hamburger. Dr. B just kindly and patiently explained that as I lost virtually all of my tongue, I have nothing with any muscle or control to help me guide food to my stomach and away from my lungs. I hate facts. But hey, he told me I could have 8 Nutren a day if I'm hungry! Now that's a gentleman.
As for me today, I'll be writing to my case manager trying to arrange that the equipment I use here magically will appear at Scott's, too. And those cases of Nutren will get to his elevator for (fingers crossed) easy delivery. That's one of the challenges of living on the top floor of a small apartment builiding on the side of a big hill. Cross fingers, elevators, that sort of thing.
For 4 weeks, I'm on official interdiction of lifting anything beyond 10 pds. Have I done it? Yes. Should I have? No. Is there a reason for that? Yes.
Now, I have to figure out how to get on a plane with a couple of tubes of Nutren and a couple of stray tubes, a cane, and a big smile.
No comments:
Post a Comment