My Latest Cancer Treatments

I hope that you read my previous article: “It Has Officially Started.”  I just wanted to tell you what happened to me as I started getting involved with the treatment that is necessary to help me fight the cancer within my body.  One would think that everything would now be perfectly fine for me.  But of course, that was not the truth!

I must admit that I was truly shocked about what happened to me at that first session at the hospital as I wrote in the article.  I could not believe that it took place.  It just seemed so out of the ordinary for me.  I expected now that I would be perfectly fine for what was to come as I was going to be treated for my disease.  Was I ever wrong!  Again.

Let me tell you what occurred.  It had nothing at all to do when I was in the hospital room being treated.

As you know, dear reader, I am supposed to have forty sessions of radiation treatment that, hopefully, will do quite well for me medically.  I learned from experience that it is not anything spectacular that I had to do while taking the treatment.  At first, I expected that I had to do a lot which would take each session about an hour.  Instead, all I have to do is lie on a special platform for about five to ten minutes in total to have some radiation treatment applied to my body in the correct location to fight the cancer tumour that I have.  It is not such a big deal when I am there.  Heck, I do not even have to put on special clothing but just move my pants a bit so that the radiation machine can attack the cancer exactly where it is located.

Given that, why would I be so excited, negatively, in the first place!  Let me tell you what occurred.  Thinking about it now, I can hardly believe that it happened.

It did take some time between my first visit to the hospital that I talked about previously and the beginning of my forty days of radiation treatment to take place.  However, once I was given the day of going to the hospital to start my actual treatment, events took place that were unbelievable to me then and still are.

About a week or so before that first day, I started to feel unwell.  No, it was not the feeling of a cold or some medical condition like the one that impacted me so significantly several years ago.  It was really only a slight pain on the right to middle side of my front body around my waist and also in my back.  Oh well, I thought, I may have hurt it a bit or pulled something when I was doing my exercising.  I expected it to go away way quickly.  However it did not.  Instead, the pain grew significantly.

A short time later, I started to experience a lot of difficulty.  The side and back of my body really hurt a lot and I was in much greater pain as time passed.  Here it was happening just before I went to hospital and I was so concerned that it might ruin my first trip there.  I really expected it to go away but it did not.  In fact, I wound up spending a lot of time in bed just resting to try to counter the pain that I was experiencing.

Let me give you an example of exactly what I mean.  I had to go to my bank to set up some new accounts there.  I wanted it done as quickly as possible before I went to the hospital since it made good sense to do so.  In my physical situation now, it was almost impossible for me to go.  I could barely stand up out of my bed and then walk as I wound up doing!  Yes, dear reader, it seemed that I had a very serious disease now.  All I could take were baby steps as I was doing my walking.  It hurt that bad.  

I was not sure exactly what I should do now.  See my family doctor?  What about my urologist?  Or maybe go to the hospital as an emergency?  Or just stay at home and try and relax to ease my pain caused by something.  

Then my daughter called me on the telephone.  I had not told her about any of this before because I did not want her involved.  She had her own personal issues from a medical position with which she was now dealing.  She hardly needed some more medical problems to make her even feel worse.  Nevertheless, she phoned me and I had to tell her what was going on.

She was a completely different person it seemed.  There was no panic on her side at all.  After all, there was no discussion with her about her conditions or whether something that I was experiencing was impacting her, negatively as well.  Instead, she was now acting as my professional counselor.  

She talked me through what I was experiencing and to try to understand with me why it was happening.  There was no panic in her nor any suggestion that I immediately go to the hospital for treatment.  She and I talked for some time about everything that I was experiencing to try to help me deal with my situation.  

Amazingly, she acted perfectly.  The truth came out, something I could not possibly understand until I spoke with her.  Everything that troubled me so much was not physical at all.  Rather it was mental, going on in my head that made me panic so much.  It is amazing that once we started talking this way I could feel my pain disappearing so quickly.  By the end of our conversation, I was in a much better state.  She did a tremendous job in talking with me in getting me to reveal to myself that I really was not experiencing anything medically wrong but rather that it was something going in my mind before my first visit to the hospital for treatment.

When I was ready to go to hospital for the very first time, I told my wife that I was in much better shape after speaking with my daughter.  I was actually in a good mood, ready for my day number 1 out of forty.  She had accomplished so much for me in such a short period of time.

Of course, there were other small issues that arose since I started taking my radiation treatments with which I dealt.  Nothing all that significant in comparison but nevertheless something that I had to resolve.  Let me just tell you about one of them quickly that was resolved by one of the radiologists who was looking after me.  I am telling you about it because it was a big surprise to me about one of her responsibilities as a hospital radiologist but one I never expected at all.

After her radiology treatment of me ended and she was still in the radiology room, we started talking and I mentioned to her that I was dealing with urological symptoms.  That troubled her immediately.  She started asking me a whole bunch of questions that surprised me.  I never had a radiologist do something like this before.  She told me that she was going to immediately contact my hospital specialist and tell him about what happened and was going to make a suggestion about what should now take place for me.  She told me that I should expect a call from the doctor’s office within a few hours telling me what should be done.  She told me that she thought I would have to take some medication because I had a urology issue.  

She was absolutely right.  I received a call from the doctor’s office to tell me that I should go to my drugstore to pick up some pills which they I just ordered for me and believed I required immediately.  In passing, let me tell you that I am not urinating as often now!

I still have, dear reader, a lot more radiation treatments I have to go through.  Oh, I have heard of some of the negatives that could happen as is usual in this kind of treatment process but not to worry too much about them.  They are not all that bad with which to deal.

The good part that I am experiencing that makes me feel so wonderful is the people with whom I am dealing.  They are amazing!  All of them, including family and the hospital staff, are acting in ways to make me feel happy with a good result in sight, hopefully, in the very near future.