Archive for February 17, 2012

A Week Later…

OK, so a week has gone by since I found out that I wasn’t dealing with hemorrhoids, but that I have stage 3 rectal cancer.  This bit of a holding pattern is somewhat frustrating as I’m waiting for insurance to get in the loop & approve things & then waiting to hear back from the doctor as to a path for (hopeful) recovery, etc.

The stress has gone down, but unfortunately, the pain hasn’t.  Still excruciating, still rotating an ice pack on my back-side every 2 hours or so.  At least Dr. Burleson gave me the HYDROCODONE to help deal with the pain somewhat.   It’s not all THAT effective to be honest, but considering I wasn’t taking ANYTHING but Tylenol for the last 8 months, some improvement is better than none!

We did have an appointment this morning with Dr. Stone (Chemo doctor) & Dr. Greenberg (Radiation doctor) of North Texas Oncology.  They’re both good-natured with a great sense of humor, which I found to be very relaxing in their company.  Dr. Stone gave me the run-down on what’s going to happen: 5 1/2 weeks of daily (Monday – Friday) radiation treatments along with a pick-line placed in my arm for chemo (24 x 7).  The goal of this is to reduce the size of the cancer.  I’ll then take 4-6 weeks off to let things “percolate” in my body & then they’ll operate on the tumor to remove what’s left of it.  Might have to repeat everything after that…not sure at this point.

On a positive note, he gave me morphine to go along with the hydrocodone to help with the pain.  He seemed impressed given the size of the cancer & all that I hadn’t been taking ANYTHING (other than Tylenol) for the pain for the last 8 months…see, I WASN’T being a WUSS all this time!  ;o)

Took the afternoon off from work (pretty much the entire day really) & relaxed, iced down, etc.