Ups and Downs

Over the past week, as my arm has continued to remain useless, it's occurred to me that, while staying focused on a positive outcome is still the best mindset for me, exploring a plan B is equally necessary for my peace of mind.

Since Wednesday is the day I see Dr. Gillis after my treatment, I asked Kevin to join me in that appointment. I told Dr. Gillis about how discouraged I've been about the arm and the weakness I feel when I'm walking. She remains confident that the radiation will kill all the cancer cells in my brain, but thinks the arm issue is caused by the fact that there is a little sac of fluid in there which the radiation can't dry up. She thinks that I either have to wait for that fluid to get re-absorbed or Dr. Lavery needs to go back in and aspirate some more of it. I see him on 11/23, so he and I will discuss that then. I recovered from the little surgery he did there before very quickly, so I'm not averse to another procedure if it can help.

As far as my concerns about my own safety when I'm alone in the apartment, Dr. Gillis brought in Renee, a social worker, and she had all kinds of ideas about resources available to me. We'll start with having someone come to the apartment to do an evaluation, and based on that, I may be hiring aides to come and do various tasks. Renee even let me project further into the future, and we discussed the options for long-term care. It wasn't morbid, rather I felt comforted being able to discuss it openly. Renee and Dr. Gillis did one thing for me immediately; They called and arranged for a much better arm sling at the SF Injury clinic. Kevin and I had lunch with Rene and he drove us there after we ate. I was fitted with a very nice sling in 5 minutes. It's much more comfortable than the Walgreens one. Kaiser continues to be good to me.

Addendum 11/11: I forgot to mentiom that Dr. Gillis ascribes what I call my "puppet with sagging strings walk" to the steroid I'm taking to fight the inflammation in my brain caused by both the surgery and the radiation. It's called Decadron and it's a bad muthuh, and the sooner they can take me off it, the better. It screws up my sleep, and gives me a wolfish appetite and makes me pee every 30 minutes and makes me jittery in addition to the puppet walk. Bleah.