It's funny as I sit here after sleeping the entire evening away when I consider that Dr. A told me radiation doesn't make a person tired. When, call me Rumpelstiltskin then cause I am the original sleeping fool! I slept from 6:30 to 8:30 tonight, then woke to have dinner and pills. Then went back to sleep until midnight when Bill woke me. Here I am typing and folding clothes, and ready to go back to sleep again.
Amazing. I know some of it is the pain patches and Tylenol. Maybe some of it is the ever present "sleep the worry away" mentality that seems to be a normal part of being a cancer patient. Maybe I'm prepping for my busy day tomorrow. Jackie to school, trip to Target for EB stuff, Stef from school, Stef to Doc visit (another bladder infection), pet scrips, get Jackie, home, da da da and a whole lot of stuff in between, I'm sure. Anyway, I'm a sleepy head.
I'm folding clothes since I was supposed to be doing that earlier. I'd empty the dishwasher too but Bill is asleep and I don't want to wake him banging dishes around. Having a Clementine and glass of water before I take more Tylenol. I never EVER thought I'd see the day that Tylenol would nauseate me on an empty stomach or even work at all, for that matter. This stuff works like a charm now.
Down to one patch since the other fell off in the shower. I think I'll try for one for now. Fentanyl really dries out my mouth. It's not really recovered from chemo yet - weak taste buds and mouth dryness are no way to go happily through life.
My skin is healing really well. Bill's burn treatment made all the difference this weekend.
4 to go and I'm DONE!!! Watch the stinking machine break this week. Murphy's Law. I will not be at all surprised.
Going to sleep, again. Be well friends!
5 comments:
So Stef has another bladder infection. Has her ped checked her for reflux? My oldest daughter had this condition when she was very young but her bladder infections had turned into kidney infections. (reflux is when the urine ends up going back to the kidney due to some faulty valve in the bladder)
I thought fatigue was a fairly common side effect of radiation even if your radiation onc doesn't understand why that would be.
We're seeing Steffie's pediatrician today so I'll mention the reflux. She did have an ultrasound done 2 months ago and all the plumbing is normal. What is the treatment for reflux?
My rads Doc (and all of them, actually) seem to withhold some of the more distressing side effects in a futile attempt to make me feel better. The node pain, arm swelling, hip pain, fatigue, etc. I've called them on it and they totally fess up by saying they don't want to worry me because everyone is different.
It might be because I'm one of their more upbeat patients. Who knows? What I do know is that they should be well aware that women have plenty of access to tons of information about side effects.
I am guessing the ultrasound was to make sure she did not have reflux, which is what a ped needed to do with a young child getting an UTI. If she were to have reflux, she would be put on antibiotics to make sure that any bladder infection wouldn't turn into a kidney infection. The urinary tract is mature by 9 or 10 so if she had it, they would need to do surgery to repair the faulty valve. These days, this is very minor surgery but for Shanna, nearly 20 years ago, it was a major surgery that she had complications from. If she were younger, they would wait for her to be 9 or 10 before deciding on surgery.But it looks like your ped is on the ball checking her by ultrasound.
He's decided to do a fluoroscopy on her as soon as possible. The in-office test came back positive but we're waiting on cultures. I mentioned the reflux and he wants to rule that out completely. My next battle will be knocking Stef out for this procedure. No child should be awake for this procedure.
My concern is that there is something on her Dad's side of the family that involves a lack of processing of potassium. His sister's have this problem and one of them mentioned that this might be an issue for the younger girls. Apparently, the excess potassium that the body can't process accumulates in the bladder or flushes out of the system instead of being used at all. Have you ever heard of this, Sue?
Not sure about the potassium issue but it would be an easy test to determine blood and urine levels. They do go haywire in diabetes. As your daughter is basically healthy, she probably is OK with her K levels.
Shanna had 2 kidney infections within a month when she was only 2.5 years old. Temps of 105 deg. In those days (1982), ultrasounds were useless and she needed an intravenous pyleogram to figure out what was wrong. Radioactive dye was placed in her veins and eventually lit up her kidneys and bladder and all those parts. She had to lie still under the x-ray for 2 hours. This was scheduled on my due date for Josh and she screamed the whole time. We (my father-in-law and myself) were not allowed to be with her. She had reflux on both sides but was given a 50% chance of out-growing it by 8 years. Didn't happen. She had the procedure they are suggesting for Steffie at least ten times over the years starting from age 4 to 14. Since refluxing can be genetic, both Josh and Naomi were screened by US but are fine. Reflux is relatively rare but Shanna's husband's nephew lost a kidney due to it at age 4. Now it is on both sides but hopefully not genetic or my poor grandchildren are at risk.
My son's buddy didn't know he had it until he was 14. During a routine physical, it was noticed he had a silent bladder infection and was found to have it.
The fact that her bladder infection didn't turn into a kidney infection is a good sign but if she continues to have bladder infections or has even one kidney infection, they will have to rule out reflux as it.
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