I can’t believe I’m awake. This is the time of my cycle that I spend on the couch, sleeping the day away despite everything that might be going on around me (which is basically just TV). But no matter how tired I might be during the day, when I go to bed, I have this annoying phenomenon that occurs no matter what I do. I wake up just enough to start writing a blog in my head, which is very annoying because 1) I don’t have anything concrete to write on or with, and 2) I will likely forget my words of brilliance by the time I wake up.
But this time, I’m going to try to just go with the flow. Without revision, I’m going to try to somehow recreate the blog I wrote in my head. I’m not going to do any revisions, I’m not going to pull out my thesaurus. I’m just going to let the words fall where they may and we can all see why I shouldn’t write when I’m half asleep!
****************
April was a bad month, especially the end of April. I had major bouts with constipation, and on top of that I had a CT scan.
Jeff and I had been very worried about the results of the scan. I had been having pain that I’d never had before, specifically one spot in my groin that I know happens to be home to a tumorous lymph node. I had not had pain like that before - I generally have only had pain from this flipping catheter, but this was way beyond that. I was taking lots of medicine that was taking the edge off, but wasn’t really taking the pain away completely.
My doctors meet on Wednesdays to discuss scan results and where to go from here, so I knew I wouldn't hear from them until after that. And the longer I waited, the more it hurt. Jeff and I were getting pretty scared. In my mind (and his, and some others) the cancer was spreading. The pain was due to the spreading, and they were going to have nothing good to say. I needed to start thinking about legal documents - Advanced Directives, Health Care Proxy, etc. This was going to be bad.
So then the phone rang and it was Trish, my Nurse Practitioner. She said to me “you’re stable”. But I was sure I was mis-hearing her, or she called the wrong person, or something. I kept asking “Are you sure?” “You have the right person?” She was sure. I was stable, they were going to continue with the same treatment - Alimta. It made no sense to me. All this pain, how can I be stable?
I spoke to Trish again on Friday, and explained to her that I hadn’t had a number 2 in about a week. She suggested that I move onto the harsh stuff - Magnesium Citrate, what they give you pre-surgery to clear you out. Yay. I was gonna go visit Mems on Saturday, so I half-heartedly gave it a try on Friday, but when we got home on Sunday I decided THIS IS IT. I am going to crap today if it’s the last thing I do. I choked down that bottle of Mag Cit and lo-and-behold, crap I did. And do you know what? The pain was gone!
Every last bit of it! So what did I learn? Apparently, constipation makes your abdomen hurt! Who knew?
It’s amazing how much I’m learning about my body. And from now on, I’m going to listen to what the doctors tell me instead of second-guessing that I know when to take a laxative and when not.
Because do you know what? I am not a doctor! And I don’t even play one on TV!
So there you go. The “as is” blog entry that came to me as I attempted to fall asleep last night. Now maybe I can sleep!!!
