Category: My So-Called Life

CAT scan day

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Yesterday I had an appointment for another scan. My appointment was for one, they told me to be there at noon. I finally got the scan at three.

This will be my life for the foreseeable future. Waiting, waiting, waiting. They wheeled in a woman on a gurney whose face looked absolutely blank, like she’d given up and didn’t know why she was there.

Last night I had a dream. Someone I knew was in my house, someone who wasn’t supposed to be there. He dove at me but I sidestepped him. He lunged at me, closer –I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. I took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully, saying “Help!

When I woke up, my throat was sore. I must have screamed in my sleep.

A productive morning

~ susie

It’s been a while since I actually got things done around here, but yesterday I got up from my desk after work, rounded up all the assorted glasses, cups, and cutlery around the place, loaded the dishwasher, cleaned the sink and counters, stacked all the magazines and then went back to my daily routine: Lying on the couch with a heating pad on the sore side of my spine, watching TV until I fell asleep.

But wait, there’s more! I reheated half a hamburger from yesterday’s lunch, and threw some potatoes in the air fryer for some crispy fries. Woo hoo! Watched the impossibly sad and traumatic season finale of Will Trent, and here I am: Still awake!

I feel like one of those women who have been ordered to bed rest during pregnancy. There’s not a lot to do. I read a lot, I watch a lot of TV. Two of my favorite activities.

Maybe it’s my imagination, but the closer it gets to the surgery date, the harder it gets to tolerate the pain. I called the nurse navigator to ask for more Tramadol, but she said I could only get it refilled from the person who ordered it. (You know, the surgeon I, uh, terminated. He originally ordered 30, but the CVS would only fill half of that without “prior authorization”.) Naturally!

So I’d probably be a lot more functional if I had enough pain meds. But playing hurt is, after all, the American way.

Yesterday I drove to my appointment

~ susie

I had to go to the hospital and get some x-rays. The parking valet asked how my day was and I confessed that taking the expressway to the hospital made me incredibly anxious. He very calmly explained another way to go to avoid the worst of it, bless him.

I think I’ve shared how anxious I get when I drive now, ever since someone ran a red light and slammed into my car a couple of years ago. I was microdosing ketamine for a while, and that helped a lot. But my doctor withdrew her permission, so oh well.

It was a short visit so I thought I’d give it a shot.

It went okay, but my back was killing me by the time I got home. This morning, everything hurts.

Tales of the broken back

~ susie ~ 5 Comments

Got the results of the MRI of my broken vertebrae. Guess what? I’ve lost 80% of the height in that one. No wonder I’m in so much pain.

So I have to meet with the neurosurgeon ASAP, probably this week, decide on whether it’s unstable (my guess is yes)and make a plan about how to handle it in light of The Tumor. The cancer surgeon wants to operate as soon as we can.

I feel like my head is going to explode.

This week in cancer

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

I switched hospitals. Too tired to go into it all, but I’m glad I did it. Meanwhile, my new team is moving heaven and earth to get me scheduled for back surgery with a neurosurgeon. My only complaint (and you knew I’d have one) is that going here is like entering a large airport and it’s a bit overwhelming. But the quality of care makes up for it.

(Some trivia: The hospital is built on the site of the old Pennsylvania Convention Center, where I graduated high school in 1972. I saw the Who open for Herman’s Hermits here! The Beatles played here on their first American tour. My brother was allowed to go, I wasn’t.)

The new pancreas surgeon is one of the top guys in the country and has done hundreds of Whipple surgeries. It is probably the single most complicated surgery there is, I don’t want a talented amateur at the wheel.

The cancer labyrinth

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

As it turns out, it’s unlikely that I can get surgery because my back is so fucked up. See that third vertebra down, the one that looks like a misshapen Pac Man eating a peanut? That’s what’s left of my L-1.

In the cancer lottery, that means I have most likely won a trip to Radiation Land. I like the radiation oncologist, I just wasn’t expecting to meet him.

America!

~ susie

Last week, the cancer surgeon prescribed Tramadol pain pills for my fractured vertebrae, but the CVS told me they would only give me three weeks’ worth without a prior authorization from the doctor. Is this a CVS thing, or does it happen everywhere?

Anyway, I cut them in half because I’m sensitive to most drugs. Boy, was I right! It was the first time in four months that I wasn’t in constant pain (it even got rid of the arthritis pain in my thumbs) BUT I was high as proverbial kite. Or drone. So I can be pain-free, but won’t have my functional wits about me.

So I decided to cut the halves in half again. (Not easy, because the pills are oval.) They took the edge off the pain, but I still felt woozy. I decided I would not take them today.

But here’s the weird thing. Everything hurts even more without them. It’s only been three days. Are the pills engineered to keep me taking them? I know that happens with oxycontin. Oh well.

Why do I torture myself?

~ susie

I’ve been binging “The West Wing” this week, trying to remind myself of a time when people ran the White House with some sense of honor. Was it really only two years ago?

Unlike some of my friends, I was never a devotee. I mean, I watched it, but I didn’t get upset if I missed a couple of weeks. Now, it’s hard to watch without getting weepy. I just watched the episode where the president rips into a right wing talk radio host by asking if it’s okay if he sells his daughter into slavery, as suggested in Leviticus, or if his mother should be burned alive for wearing mixed fabrics.

And so on.

One of the things I’ve been asking friends is, is there a constitutional way to prosecute Christian nationalists who demand the death of anyone who doesn’t follow their interpretation of biblical law? (You know, like much of the Trump administration.)

So far, no one has come up with anything. But we’re still talking about it.

And now I’m waiting to see if Trump is actually going to surge ICE here in my city, the city where American independence was first codified. I am frightened of what will happen to our citizens, but I’m also curious to see what our citizens do to ICE. Stay tuned.