I haven't written anything in a week because not much was happening, except that I have very low energy levels. Walking up one flight of stairs leaves me out of breath for a while. Moreover, I haven't written here, or contacted anyone, because I didn't feel like doing anything at all except sitting on the couch, reading the paper or watching tv. I don't even like tv, but I do have to say it requires zero energy to watch it, so that is what I have been doing. Well, I also inject myself with Fragmin every day, take my usual handful of pills, drain the bile bag, and get radiation every week day.
Things took a turn for the worse last night. It was another horrible night of hiccuping all night long. The hiccups and the pressure in my liver (pushing out against my ribs) have been building up over the last few days. This morning I woke up to discover that the gauze dressing on my bile tube was almost fully soaked with bile. It had been leaking out around the tube straight out of my ribs.
So, today was a long day at the hospital. I had blood work scheduled for 7:30am, and I was very tired from barely sleeping all night. Even though I can now walk again, the nurse taking my blood said I should get a wheelchair because I looked so pale. That was a good call. I felt very faint.
I had my radiation, and then sat around for a long time, and then met with my oncologist to discuss which anti-nausea drugs I would take for the cisplatin dose I am getting tomorrow, and to confirm that I was willing to continue for the next 3 weeks to see this chemo/radiation regime to the end. My blood levels and liver enzyme levels are fine (relatively), which is good news. On the down side I am still losing weight. I try to eat and eat, but I just get thinner and thinner.
At 1pm I went down to Radiology so they could take a look at my leaking tube site. They could have done a tube change tomorrow, but I have 5 hours of getting cisplatin tomorrow, so we scheduled day surgery for this Thursday to get my tube changed. This time I will be sedated.
