Things took a nose dive last night when Becky fell while getting out of the shower. As is typical for her she didn't let me know she was going to be taking a shower so I wasn't there when it happened. She stressed her left shoulder again (it has cancer and a fractured scapula) plus she hurt her right arm and shoulder and her hips.
All that was Wednesday night. Thursday morning she was able to get up and walk okay but she tired easily. We had breakfast out and she was able to walk in and out just fine..... although slowly. She was to have a shot today (Thursday) at roughly the same time I was to be at work. I asked her if she needed me to drive her and she assured me she'd be fine.
An hour later she calls from the cancer clinic...... where she came close to passing out and had her blood pressure drop. Turns out that while driving over there she suddenly got very short of breath about half way and it hurt for her to breathe. Now at the clinic they start an IV to hydrate her and do an x-ray of her chest. Her left lung is filling up with fluid again but no additional fractures or breaks show up. (Oh.... lots of cancer markers in that fluid they drained last week..... not good) They gave her a shot for her pain and by the time I got there she was loopy as all get out..... and still in a LOT of pain just trying to breathe.
They ended up not giving her the shot..... but did send her home with both pain pills and pain patches. We had to leave her car over there and when we got her home could not get in inside the house. She could neither stand nor walk. So we took off to get a wheelchair. To make a long story short the first place I went didn't have what I wanted BUT a man on the same isle asked if I needed a regular wheelchair and I said I did. He said he had one he no longer needed because his wife had passed away several months previous.... and he'd give it to us if we'd follow him home to get it. We did and he rolled it out. Our "payment" is that we have to give it to someone in need when we are done with it. Fair enough deal I'd say. :-)
SO! God smiled on us with the chair.... putting the man that had one in the right place at the right time. I'm also hoping that this event will drive home the point that Becky is not doing nearly enough to keep her immune system strong...... which is why the cancer is starting to get the upper hand. We're getting her back on the Bill Henderson program 100% with the exception of the Budwig diet. At least the cottage cheese and flax oil part...... which she just cannot stand to take anymore. I'll find some other method of getting more oxygen in her.
Anyway.... that's it for right now. It still is hurting her to breathe and she is still very weak too. Hopefully she will be a bit stronger in the morning. We'll see. Till next time..... take good care of each other......
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
#30 - An August Update!
Unfortunately this is NOT the August which immediately followed the previous July posting. I seem to have missed a year somewhere along the way for which I apologize to the followers.
The last therapy being used here at home was the modern version of the Rife machine. I suppose that using it ranks right up there with watching paint dry or grass grow. It's boring as hell. When operating in the carrier wave mode you feel absolutely nothing.... even though there is 10 watts of power being sent through your body. There is a display which keeps track of the therapy stage but otherwise there's not much of interest going on. Since you feel nothing..... and running through all the frequency ranges necessary to cover both the X and Y strains of cancer takes hours..... it gets old fast.
Unfortunately..... faster than is necessary to quantify it's effectiveness. [SIGH] We still have the unit though so perhaps it's a matter of getting it set up near where Becky spends most of her day. That way even though it's still boring.... she can continue to do whatever else she wants while that runs in the background. Previously we had it in the bedroom so she was stuck just sitting there for 45 to 90 minutes while the device cycled through all the frequency variations. In the living room she can still watch TV, read or use her computer while the device runs..... which should make using it much more practical.
On other fronts the injectable chemo eventually gave way to a bag form known as Halavan. It is a rather new product which is specific for estrogen receptive breast cancers. The first 3 or 4 treatments went well and Becky was feeling pretty good in general. We had her hair styled in an easy to manage fashion that I could maintain for her at home. The week after we got her hair the way she liked...... it began coming out in clumps. Every time she would shower it would cover the shower floor. It would fill her towel when she dried off..... and her comb when the combed it. Nearly in tears she asked me one morning if I'd drive her to the salon so she could get it all cut off. "No..... it it's gotta come off then I'll do that for you." So I got out the barber stuff and a shaver and made her nice and shiny.
Of course by then it was getting cool out so I got her a variety of hats and caps to wear to help keep her head warm. Stocking caps for really cold outside stuff.... and flannel caps for restaurants and things. And of course for those who know me...... bald didn't matter a bit. Loved her with tall Texas hair..... loved her with a short page boy look..... .loved her slick and shiny too. Same thing with the missing breast..... two..... one... none.... doesn't matter to me. Neither of those things is what loving someone is all about anyway.
Okay.... so where the heck are we today? She was still on the Halavan the last time we went in..... but a scan seemed to indicate a bit of a spread in the large leg bone down from the hip..... so the Doctor may well advocate for something different as the cancer may have adapted to the previous drug. She also takes shots to help her bones stay together and another to help with her white cell numbers.
A few months ago she developed a cough which persisted. It was a dry and unproductive cough but it plagued her day and night. Of course each time I'd voice my concern she would insist that it was nothing. Then on July 27th the hospital in Arlington drained 1880cc of "nothing:" from her left lung cavity. That's enough fluid to fill the cylinders of a LARGE V-twin motorcycle engine!!! (Think 2 liter coke bottle) She lost 5 pounds during the process. She was still coughing and in some discomfort as her lung tried to unfold back into the void available with the fluid removed. After a couple of additional days the coughing almost stopped and she was able to sleep through the night for the first time in months. She still has an occasional cough so I fear the lung may be filling up again.
While I'm thankful that the fluid is gone and she can sleep all night..... I'm still bothered that *no one* made any attempt to figure out WHY her lung cavity filled with fluid in the first place. From what I read generalized inflammation is the main reason.... and if so then what is causing that? Is it a breakdown of her immune system? Is she developing some problem other than cancer now? What the heck is it? Most days she is SO weak that a trip to the bathroom and back just completely exhausts her. When she gets back you'd think she'd been out running a marathon or chopping wood for an hour straight. She is wiped out. [SIGH]
While she was doing the radiation on her bones we gave the Bill Henderson book to a nice lady she had met there. Thus we ended up falling away from his protocol which is designed to boost the immune system so that the patient has more time to fight and (hopefully) beat the cancer. Last week I bought the updated version so I need to review the protocol and order the recommended products. The only part of the plan we'll probably not use is the cottage cheese and flax oil..... the Budwig diet. Becky forced herself to do it for about a year but just cannot stand the oily feel in her mouth that results from consuming the mixture. Since that part of the program is designed specifically to transport oxygen more effectively to the cancers.... I'll have to find some other method of getting her blood-oxygen levels elevated. I'm thinking as much stationary bicycle as she can manage while breathing pure oxygen might do the trick. At least it can't hurt anything.
Since our kitchen project is coming along well I hope to have more time to devote to the therapy of writing again. Sorry I let this go for so long and I'll try not to let that happen again. Until next time......
Peace
The last therapy being used here at home was the modern version of the Rife machine. I suppose that using it ranks right up there with watching paint dry or grass grow. It's boring as hell. When operating in the carrier wave mode you feel absolutely nothing.... even though there is 10 watts of power being sent through your body. There is a display which keeps track of the therapy stage but otherwise there's not much of interest going on. Since you feel nothing..... and running through all the frequency ranges necessary to cover both the X and Y strains of cancer takes hours..... it gets old fast.
Unfortunately..... faster than is necessary to quantify it's effectiveness. [SIGH] We still have the unit though so perhaps it's a matter of getting it set up near where Becky spends most of her day. That way even though it's still boring.... she can continue to do whatever else she wants while that runs in the background. Previously we had it in the bedroom so she was stuck just sitting there for 45 to 90 minutes while the device cycled through all the frequency variations. In the living room she can still watch TV, read or use her computer while the device runs..... which should make using it much more practical.
On other fronts the injectable chemo eventually gave way to a bag form known as Halavan. It is a rather new product which is specific for estrogen receptive breast cancers. The first 3 or 4 treatments went well and Becky was feeling pretty good in general. We had her hair styled in an easy to manage fashion that I could maintain for her at home. The week after we got her hair the way she liked...... it began coming out in clumps. Every time she would shower it would cover the shower floor. It would fill her towel when she dried off..... and her comb when the combed it. Nearly in tears she asked me one morning if I'd drive her to the salon so she could get it all cut off. "No..... it it's gotta come off then I'll do that for you." So I got out the barber stuff and a shaver and made her nice and shiny.
Of course by then it was getting cool out so I got her a variety of hats and caps to wear to help keep her head warm. Stocking caps for really cold outside stuff.... and flannel caps for restaurants and things. And of course for those who know me...... bald didn't matter a bit. Loved her with tall Texas hair..... loved her with a short page boy look..... .loved her slick and shiny too. Same thing with the missing breast..... two..... one... none.... doesn't matter to me. Neither of those things is what loving someone is all about anyway.
Okay.... so where the heck are we today? She was still on the Halavan the last time we went in..... but a scan seemed to indicate a bit of a spread in the large leg bone down from the hip..... so the Doctor may well advocate for something different as the cancer may have adapted to the previous drug. She also takes shots to help her bones stay together and another to help with her white cell numbers.
A few months ago she developed a cough which persisted. It was a dry and unproductive cough but it plagued her day and night. Of course each time I'd voice my concern she would insist that it was nothing. Then on July 27th the hospital in Arlington drained 1880cc of "nothing:" from her left lung cavity. That's enough fluid to fill the cylinders of a LARGE V-twin motorcycle engine!!! (Think 2 liter coke bottle) She lost 5 pounds during the process. She was still coughing and in some discomfort as her lung tried to unfold back into the void available with the fluid removed. After a couple of additional days the coughing almost stopped and she was able to sleep through the night for the first time in months. She still has an occasional cough so I fear the lung may be filling up again.
While I'm thankful that the fluid is gone and she can sleep all night..... I'm still bothered that *no one* made any attempt to figure out WHY her lung cavity filled with fluid in the first place. From what I read generalized inflammation is the main reason.... and if so then what is causing that? Is it a breakdown of her immune system? Is she developing some problem other than cancer now? What the heck is it? Most days she is SO weak that a trip to the bathroom and back just completely exhausts her. When she gets back you'd think she'd been out running a marathon or chopping wood for an hour straight. She is wiped out. [SIGH]
While she was doing the radiation on her bones we gave the Bill Henderson book to a nice lady she had met there. Thus we ended up falling away from his protocol which is designed to boost the immune system so that the patient has more time to fight and (hopefully) beat the cancer. Last week I bought the updated version so I need to review the protocol and order the recommended products. The only part of the plan we'll probably not use is the cottage cheese and flax oil..... the Budwig diet. Becky forced herself to do it for about a year but just cannot stand the oily feel in her mouth that results from consuming the mixture. Since that part of the program is designed specifically to transport oxygen more effectively to the cancers.... I'll have to find some other method of getting her blood-oxygen levels elevated. I'm thinking as much stationary bicycle as she can manage while breathing pure oxygen might do the trick. At least it can't hurt anything.
Since our kitchen project is coming along well I hope to have more time to devote to the therapy of writing again. Sorry I let this go for so long and I'll try not to let that happen again. Until next time......
Peace
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