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Friday, January 15

Where I stand as of today

Well it's been a rather stressful week (to say the least). I got to Houston thinking I knew everything that would happen and very little of it actually materialized.

In my first meeting with Dr. Joseph and Dr. Burzynski, we were essentially blown away with the suggestion that I essentially had to do some form of radiation. I wasn't prepared for that at all, but then we talked about it further (and after my blood pressure went from meandering turtle speed to the speed of a rabbit on meth), i actually gave some consideration to doing gamma knife surgery. It's a localized one day outpatient ordeal, and it leaves little to no side effects. "OK," I thought, "I'm gonna do it. I'll just have to go to MD Anderson, and they'll take care of it all. Right?" Wrong. They wouldn't do Gamma Knife without me first doing the much bigger, much longer, much scarier form of fractionated radiation (which I'm just not ready for...yet).

So then my stress levels sky rocketed into the Earth's orbit...again. I had no plan anymore, and furthermore, Burzynski didn't have much of a plan for me either. In short, I had nothing; back to the drawing board (which, by the way, is not where I wanted or expected to be so quickly). Then I met a very kind nurse named Rebecca through Email who heads up the St. Joseph Gamma Knife department. After relating to me that she fully understood what I was going through (one of her family members had had a brain tumor already), she assured me that although she couldn't guarantee anything because she wasn't the consultation doc, she could guarantee me that they would do the treatment without having done the fractionated stuff first. "What a relief," I thought.

From that point on, things have kind of slid on a much smoother plane today, but it was a rough week for sure. I thought my trip to Philly would be ruined. I thought about having to give up this class. I thought about lots of scary things, but for now, I think it'll all be ok...for a bit. I shouldn't let my guard down. You never know what could happen or when. Everything can be just fine, then BAM! your whole world is reeling. I think it'll all be OK. I just have to remember to breathe...

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