This morning, my father-in-law drove me down for my next radiation treatment. I’m glad I’m doing the treatments now because they seem to work well. I knew radiation would kill the melanoma on my T7 vertebrae, but I didn’t believe when they told me I’d see almost immediate results. Well, on Friday afternoon I discovered what a 10 feels like on the pain scale. In my semi-learned opinion, bone pain is significantly worse than muscle pain. After two treatments (Friday evening and Saturday morning), I was down to a 1, with peak pain about a 2. Monday went back up to a 2-3, with peak pain around 4. And today was probably a 4. And then I got my radiation fix and I’m back down to a 2. My next appointment is for Thursday and, hopefully, I’ll have daily treatments for the next few weeks. I’d love to have a day with no pain.
The downside to killing the melanoma is now it’s harder to see if the ipilimumab is working. I still have a small spot on my T1 vertebrae, but it might be too small to get a good reading. Heck, I’m all for just having no additional spots show up!
I’d also like to get off all the additional medicines. Not that oxy and vicodin aren’t good, but I’d rather not have to use them. And I don’t like the fact that I need a spreadsheet to track all my mess, by dose, by time. Especially since ipilimumab has its own set of side effects, which can potentially add even more meds. I’m turning into an old man with a pill case! And I need a cool, new watch with multiple alarms so I know when to dose myself. Or it would be cheaper and less annoying if my melanoma just went away with no fuss.
I’m really not enjoying sitting at home all day. I want to get back to work because I feel like my brain is atrophying as I sit here. There’s only so much time I can sit here reading different news sites or looking at Facebook.
oggipenso 