Thursday, January 8, 2009

8/1/09-9/1/09: Busy Days

On Wednesday the eight my Mom, my Dad, and I were in the car on the free way, going to a brain tumor patients and caregivers support group, when a seizure hit me. Mom was driving, I was in the front passenger seat, and Dad was sitting behind me. I said "I... I... I..." and then when Mom asked if I was going to have a seizure, I finally got out "yes." I then started shaking violently at first on the right side and then it spread to my left. Meanwhile, my head turned way to the right, and I passed out. Apparently after I passed out I started to fall over to my left, threatening to fall on Mom, who was driving, but Dad managed to keep me upright. The incident lasted two or three minutes but was very tiring for all, and my speech and coordination took quite a hit. Nether the less, we went on to the support group, which was good.

The following morning Mom and I had to leave home at 6am to go to a previously scheduled appointment for an MRI, a blood draw, and to see my oncologist. The MRI requires an IV to inject the contrast so I the plan was to leave the port open for the oncological nurse to draw blood from and seal it up again. But there were not any qualified nurses available at that time to do that, so after the appointment the oncologist sent me to the infusion clinic to have that done. The people at the infusion clinic were briefly confused because I didn't have an appointment, but they know me and they kindly scheduled a last minute appointment while chastising doctors in general. The ladies at the infusion clinic are a fun bunch. My oncologist and I decided to continue the chemo for now and slightly increase one of the anti-seizure drugs, and try a drug that will hopefully help with my tremor and seizure.

So that is my two busy days, and now I think I'll take a nap. Oh and my MRI showed no sign of the suspicious spot that had shown itself on the previous MRIs. That probably ether means it was just a transient bit of necrosis from radiotherapy or it was tumor regrowth that the chemo beat down.