Today’s gonna be a good good day!
I have a lot to do today and I am anxious to get started. It’s only 5:40 in the morning and I’m wide awake. Today will be my fifth hyperbaric treatment. Everybody asks me what it’s like. It’s kind of hard to describe, but I’ll try.
Imagine a fancy tanning bed. Everyday at 2:00 p.m. I get up onto a gurney and I’m rolled into a big plastic chamber. For an hour, I lie down and try to stretch the left side of my body to get it working again. There is a TV on if I want to watch it, otherwise I’m just lying there, breathing pure oxygen for an hour. It has started to dry out my face. My skin is very dry and gross. It doesn’t hurt, yawning gets old, but other than that, it’s just a fancy nap time. I have 35 more treatments after today. I’ll be done sometime by the end of February.
It has now been over 3 weeks since I have been able to really move my left arm and leg like normal. I am still mad at what happened. I don’t want to spend a lot of time trying to figure out why or how it happened. I just want to use my arm again.
I am supposed to have a physical therapy evaluation today. I am still waiting for my appointment time. We are going to try a stim (stimulation) treatment (a machine that will shock my muscles to see if they will move at all). I am very anxious to try.
My good church community has a meal schedule for me so I am well loved and well fed for the next couple of weeks.
I am still having a hard time trying to be patient. My arm is very heavy and I am tired of walking around like a zombie, but I still think it’s going to be a good, good day.
Dictated by Carina, Typed by Lesley.
1 comment:
Happy New Year! I am working on improving my blogroll- Cancer Blogs - at Being Cancer Network where your own blog is presently listed. One of the things I want to do is to improve the 800 blog entries, making them more useful for readers.
Check to see if information is correct. Please let me know your specific cancer diagnosis - the medical term. Also the year you were diagnosed and anything else you think is relevant for the listing such as a transplant. If you have written a book or memoir, I can feature it in a special Cancer Book List section. Please include the name of your blog in the email so I can put the information in the correct listing.
Cancer Blogs I & II has been a very popular (over 8000 visits) and valuable resource for folks. It allows people to view what others with a similar diagnoses have gone through. And it brings additional attention and traffic to survivor’s blogs. It is helping to build a strong, vibrant community of survivors.
Please consider adding Being Cancer Network to your blogroll if you have not already done so.
Please see my January 10 post - New Year’s New Face - for additional changes in the website. WIshing you a happy and healthy new year.
Dennis Pyritz, RN
leukemia & transplant survivor
beingcancer@att.net
www.beingcancer.net
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