It's All Over

Please excuse me for not posting more articles on here about my visits to the hospital. I had to go there for radiation treatment to deal with the cancer condition that I had. I have to admit that I just did not feel like posting an article, whether it had to do with my medical situation or something completely different, as I have done so many times before as a writer. I had something more important that was impacting me so dramatically during this time period.

However, it all ended at the end of November. Accordingly, let me tell you quickly what happened during this time period so you will understand what I experienced with my condition.

Believe it or not, I had to go to the hospital every day for about two months for medical treatments. They started in the beginning of October and ended on the last Friday in November. I had to make all of these trips to have radiation treatments undertaken to help fight my disease. I had some negativity in my body that these treatments would attack. However, I believe that a lot of what I was doing was to prevent anything worse from happening because of this situation in the future.

In all, I went five days a week for just over eight weeks [NOTE: There were a few official holidays that interrupted the program since this section of the hospital completely closed on those days]. I officially had forty visits that I had to go to the hospital for treatments. I went every week from Monday to Friday. This part of the hospital was closed completely on weekends so I did not have to go then for radiation. In fact, I was told that this made medical sense since it would allow my body to rest for a couple of days each week.

Interestingly, I was told that, even though I am not taking any treatments now, my body is still reacting to the radiation that entered into my system and will do so for the next several weeks. In other words, I might still be having some negative matters taking place that could affect how I feel but so far, knock on wood, I am not feeling anything bad.

The length of time for my forty medical treatments may seem quite long to you. I have to admit that it seemed extremely long to me at first and I was not sure how well I would do while undertaking the program. I have to admit however that I cannot believe how quickly it all seemed to be completed from start to finish even though I spent two months going to the hospital. It just seemed to take place so fast

Each treatment took about 10 to 15 minutes once I entered the hospital treatment area. That was also a big surprise to me because I expected it to take much longer. I had heard before that it might take as long as an hour to be completed. Nevertheless, when one has to drive into the City to go to the hospital and then drive back home after the treatment was finished, several hours each day is taken up by this medical service.

Something that was very interesting was the time of day when I had to go in for the treatment. I asked before it all started if my attendance could take place at 10 AM or a bit later every day. I knew how my body acted every morning and wanted to make sure that I was not going to suffer otherwise. In the vast majority of the visits, my timing took place around the time that I had asked for. However, there were several occasions when I had to be there at around 7:30 AM in the morning for my treatment. I got up every morning at about 4 o’clock to prepare to go in at that time. Some of the people told me that their hours were sometimes pretty crazy with one appointment late in the day and then the next one early in the morning.

I do not know the reason for this weird change in time but I expect it happened because of one of the important issues that took place just after I started attending for my appointments. Normally, the end of the day for treatment there was around 5:00 to 5:30 PM. However, it changed dramatically after I started attending by extension of appointment time by about two hours, or in other words ending at around 7:00 to 7:30 PM each night. The number of new cases increased dramatically I was told.

I have no idea how long this should carry on. Clearly, there is something very dramatic happening with respect to the number of people who are so ill now. Can you think of what may happen as even more people get older and, just as importantly, if more older people move from other cities to the Windsor Area after they retire. What will happen once a new hospital is built that is about the same size as the hospitals now and some of the existing hospitals are closed down? How will a substantially increased number of patients be treated at that time?

If you want to know what my condition is like now, I wish I could tell you. I have not got the faintest idea be honest about it. My last appointment with one of the doctors there, since my doctor was on a Sabbatical for a couple of months, did not give me all that much information about my condition because that doctor did not have anything that he could talk to me about.

The strange part about everything is that my next appointment with my doctor at the hospital to discuss my condition after all this treatment will take place in May of next year. The reason for it was quite a surprise to me. It will take anywhere from one to three months for all of my testing results to be finalized so that the doctor can decide what my position is. Obviously, if there is a concern, I would be called in a lot earlier. However, and I am hoping for this, if there is no serious negative change in my condition then there is no need for me to meet with him until that time. Of course, I will have to have some blood testing undertaken before I return to the doctor for him to review my condition then but my hope would be that my situation was a good one if I did not have to see him for such a long period of time.

I do believe that, even if I am in good shape at that time, I will still have to take tests periodically in the future to make sure that nothing negative is starting all of a sudden. Or, if my situation is getting worse, then I hope that I will be able to start taking a medical program right away to minimize the impact of anything that is coming on. With the program that I have with my urologist now, it is supposed to carry on for about two to three years. I expect that I will have something similar with my cancer doctor.

Let me just talk about one other matter. The employees of the hospital who looked after me were completely fantastic. As I said, I had forty treatments. Each of the treatments had at least two people who were working on it. I did not have the same two people attending each of my forty sessions. Rather, I probably had some people treat me only about two or three times if they were in the senior position or perhaps up to six times if they were in the junior position in each session. In doing a “Patient Survey” to let the senior hospital people know a bit more about my dealings in the Radiation Therapy Department, I filled in one of their forms. I am not going to set out everything that I wrote but just this which I wrote and sent out so early in my process:

“I am about halfway through my 40 sessions in the Department. In fact, I just finished the other day my first meeting with my doctor after my sessions started in order to bring him up to date on my status. I let him know that, in each session, I have been treated so well. I expect that I have seen quite a number of different employees who have handled all of the sessions. Each one of them has dealt me in a very professional manner, making sure that everything about me is working out well…

It should be obvious that my health matter now is much more serious to me than anything before. Certainly I am concerned myself, but I am just as concerned about how my wife and children are able to handle my terrible situation. I do not want them to suffer as well because of what is happening to me. Once again, the remarkably positive way that I am being dealt with by the Radiation Department staff has made life so much better for them and relieved them of many of the difficulties that they are having to face right now.”

There you have it. Now you will understand what happened to me over the last two months while I had my treatments being taken. There is no doubt that I was sometimes unbelievably worried about what might happen to me. Fortunately, the people involved treated me so well that I felt so wonderful as the program was carried on so successfully.

I better get myself back into order and start writing articles for my Webpage!