Skip to main content

Another indicator I'm getting the "good" stuff!


I'm just getting ready for my next infusion.  The last three weeks have been quite eventful.  About three weeks ago, I began having pain in my back and stomach.  It would come and go.  I began thinking that if I could just get to my next treatment and scans, I could find out what was going on.  I had never been in that much sustained discomfort ever without knowing what was causing the problem or pain. 
Last Thursday, I was at home and suddenly my tailbone felt like someone was attempting to pull it out of my back.  It hurt so bad I couldn't stand up. I sat down and the pain went away.  When I sat up to get into bed, my back began hurting.  I woke up on Friday and felt OK so I went to work.  I was OK sitting down but as soon as I stood up for any length of time, my back would hurt so bad I could not move!  My wife, Nicole, had already called Huntsman to ask Dr. Grossman what we should do.  About 3 pm, Nicole called me to tell me Dr. Grossman wanted me to go to the ER to have scans done.They were worried the cancer may have come back and was now in my bones.  Nicole and I went to UVRMC ER and 7 hours later, learned that it was not the cancer but they did not know what was causing the pain.  Over the weekend, I felt nauseated as well as in a great deal of pain.  On Monday, I went to see Dr. Brett Thorpe, a Gastroenterologist, regarding the pain.  Dr. Thorpe felt the pain was coming from problems with my esophagus or stomach.  Dr. Thorpe decided to do an EGD.  On Thursday, I had the EGD and found my esophagus, stomach, and duedenum were inflamed and ulcerated.  I began taking medication prior to eating that seems to help. 
I continued to have some pain in my back.  We did some more tests and found that my gall bladder was bad.  They removed my gall bladder right before Spring Break.  About a week before Easter, I began to break out in hives.  I was miserable.   I went to HCI and learned it was not directly related to my treatment.  I went to a dermatologist at the U of U and learned that they did not know what had caused the hives but it could be related to an infection.  They began me on a large dose of antihistimine that I had to increase to get the itching to stop.  The medicine made me really onery and my wife said I had no filter.  On Thursday, prior to Easter, I found out at another doctor visit that I had a sinus infection.  After taking the antibiotic, the hives finally went away. 
I have been able to continue doing everything.  I play basketball twice a week and umpire.  I recently umpired my first D1 baseball game and just umpired the 3A championship game. 
I know this entry is late, but you can see it has been busy.  I am getting ready for my next treatment in a couple of weeks.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

When People Think You Are Dying

I received an interesting email from a friend this week.  It said he had heard I had relapsed and he wanted to get together and go to lunch.  I was really appreciative of the invitation but started to wonder why he thought I had relapsed.  I spoke with this friend who told me that he heard through someone else that I was "terminal" and that I only had a few months to live.  He also told me that this message had been received by many in an announcement made at a meeting.  I was a little shocked!  First that someone heard I was dying and second that I mattered enough to have it announced!  I assured my friend that I was doing just fine and that I was not "dying".  I told him that I had no new re-occurrence of melanoma and that my treatments were going just fine.  This made me start to think about life in general and how we communicate! In regards to communication, I learned how this information was obtained.  It was taken out of context by another friend.  It is ama
1 comment
Read more

Tired and stomach bothering me a little

So,  Nicole and I are in the middle of remodeling the house.  I go to work all day and come home and do work on the house to get ahead of the remodelers.  All weekend it is nothing but working on the house.  We are getting down to the end but we are also getting to the hardest part of the job.  The girls were gone all week and that made it nice with the house being torn apart.  Now that they are back, we have no rooms done for them.  We are all staying in our bedroom downstairs.  We put one bed in the room for the girls.  Problem is, that is the next room to get done.  We won't get carpet, most likely, until next week, so we are trying to figure out what to do.  My sister, Kim, offered her trailer and my brother, Justin, would most likely let us come stay at his house for a couple of days.  What to do!  What to do! Lately, probably from not stopping, I have gotten tired real easy.  I am used to pushing myself and working to exhaustion, but that simply isn't going to happen ri
Post a Comment
Read more

What We're Doing at Home

We have been really busy since our Christmas present trip to Disneyland!   We had planned to remodel the kitchen prior to the trip but ut it off until after the trip. My brother, Justin and I took a week off work to get at much done as possible.   We got most of the demolition done and framing in that week.  We have been working the last two weeks after work to finish all the detail work. We are currently waiting for the cabinets to be installed so we can install appliances and use the kitchen once again! It's been a tough job but very fulfilling.   My brother Justin has been a great help!  Thanks Justin!
1 comment
Read more