My life has been a whirlwind since my last post. I went to my Infectious Disease Dr. appointment last Monday and was also able to meet with Dr. Mickey. Both appointments went well. The I.D doctor saw no signs of infection and removed the PIC line out my arm. That means no more I.V which I am very thankful for. Dr. Mickey looked at my incision and after pushing very hard on it said it looked good. Here's a little dialogue from my visit with him.
Me: impatient and frustrated "will you just tell me what the next step is and when we're going to do it?"
Dr. Mickey: thinks about it for 15 seconds "well we will either start radiation at the end of this week or the beginning of next week."
That's definatly not the response I was expecting. I was hoping we would wait till after the holidays and my Birthday (it's December 30th...... so get shopping! haha) but oh well. I'm glad to be getting it over with. I waited around the next couple of days for someone to call me and tell me when we would start the radiation. Here's some dialogue from when my Radiation Oncologist nurse called me Wednesday afternoon.
Nurse: "Mr. Lair your first radiation treatment will be tomorrow (Thursday) at 2:30 p.m ....... unless that's a problem."
Me: surprised "Problem?......... Ma'm I live in Amarillo!"
Nurse: "Hahaha that's what I thought."
Me: "Well if that's when I need to be there I guess I can make that happen."
As I'm sure you can see I had very little time to pack and move to Dallas for more than 6 WEEKS. So, I did my best to get everything in order and drove to Dallas early Thursday morning. My first radiation treatment was a long one. They strapped my head to a table for 45 minutes while they took X-rays to make sure everything lined up correctly and then administered the radiation. I don't think saying "they strapped my head to a table" does it justice. They place the hard plastic mesh mask on my head and tighten the ever living ******* (use whatever word you feel comfortable with) out it. It's so tight I can't even open my eye lids. Other than that the procedure is relatively painless. I'll be going threw this 5 days a week for the next 6 weeks. The actual radiation time is only about 10 minutes a day but it takes about an hour and a half from the time I arrive at the hospital till I leave.
So what am I going to do with the rest of my time for the next 6 weeks?
I'm really not sure yet. I can already feel the effects of the radiation by the way it makes me feel tired. Fortunately, I'm very blessed that my friends Tim and BJ Parra are allowing me to stay at their home in Las Colinas. They don't really live here much anymore so I'm pretty much on my own. Tim and BJ if your reading this THANK YOU!! As most of you know I lived in Dallas for 3 1/2 years so I still have a pretty good network of friends to occupy my time. I've spent the last 2 nights hanging out with 2 of my closest friend Jeff and Kallie Hauschild.
Well........ that's all I have for now. It looks like I'm going to have alot of time on my hands so I'm sure I'll be updating this again soon. As always I greatly appreciate your concern and support.
God Bless,
Brian
