MRI Friday

I am having an MRI on Friday to see what is going on with the tumor in the psoas muscle. Specifically, we are going to "rule out spinal cord compression."

I have been in low level pain for a week. At night, I can't lie on my back, on my stomach, or on my left side. Luckily, Advil and Tylenol have taken care of the pain for the most part, although I do wake up around 3:00AM every night in pain because at some point I rolled over into a painful position.

If I stand up straight, my pain level jumps from a dull aching 1 to a serious 4. So if you see me and notice that I am walking sort of slumped over to the left, that is why. Slumpy is comfy! [Oh, that is awful.]

The really great part is that when I am sitting in my ergonomic office chair at work, I am comfortable and nothing hurts. I forget about being sick, and I completely focus on work. As I have said before, sometimes I forget to go home! ;^) Thank God I do not have a job where I have to stand up straight.

Dr Reidel suggested that the pain might be radiation recall, which is when you have radiation followed by chemo -- and during the chemo, the radiation side effects (redness, pain) come back.

Easy Chemo was very easy today. We definitely killed some cancer cells today. I got another Aranesp injection (hemoglobin at 9.4). The best part was when my nurse teased the pregnant nurse who dropped my Neulasta shot, asking if she wanted to give me this shot too. I love the idea that I helped add a story to the Treatment Room folklore.