Radiation

I promise I will add to this tonight. Schedule has been a little crazy around our house, but quickly this is what we learned from the MRI yesterday. I have atleast 10 tumors on my brain that the doctor can see. Because of this, they'll need to radiate the whole brain. Chemo can not penetrate the brain membrane but cancer can, so in order to kill the cancer cells that are there, we need to radiate them. I'm going in for mapping of my brain this morning. I will update this later tonight. I will say this quickly, I have felt your prayers and fasting in mine and my families behalf. I have had no bone pain since Sunday, which is huge! I love you all <3 - Rebecca
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I'll back up again a little bit and explain what's happened this last week. So last Thursday, July 12th was my first radiation treatment. I knew this would be pretty uneventful from past experience. I make a 50 minute drive to the Cancer Center, lay on the radiation table for maybe 3 minutes, and I'm done. So I figured, if that's all it's going to be, I might as well look cute doing it. So I wore a new shirt that Rachael got me and took my favorite bag because I refuse to be labeled the cancer patient. Not yet anyway. I also took Makenna with me to do some college shopping because I don't want to miss out on all her fun preparing for school. We hit several stores afterwards looking for basic things that she'll need and then it hit me. I just needed to get home. No matter how much I want it to be different, my body just can't do everything I wish it too. So I drove home and went straight to bed.

Haha, obviously I'm not a selfie taker.

This cute bag was given to me by one of my dear friends the last time I had cancer. I love it! It holds all the things I need and travels with me everywhere I go. 

I didn't sleep well Thursday or Friday. Radiation has been different this time. I have had a lot of bone pain where they're doing the radiation treatment. Since there are "innumerable" lesions on my bones, we are not able to treat all of them with radiation because it hurts the bone marrow and we need chemo to travel through that to attack all the areas we can't get with radiation. I think that's how they explained it to me, so they only want to radiate the areas where I'm currently hurting. But only one of those areas has a visible tumor that they can see and that is located on my left pelvic region. Thursday, Friday and Saturday though, I was in a lot of pain during the nights after treatment. The pain meds the doctor gave me only worked for a couple hours, so I bagged those and went back to ibuprofen. That helped way better! Ibuprofen, a heating pad/hot baths and my leather recliner were my friends those three days. It's crazy because I feel best when I'm up walking around. Laying down and sitting is the worst. So it's kinda crazy because when I get tired, I need to lay down but I also know that will bring on more pain.

The weekend was nice because family was in town and so was the new baby in our family. I love newborns! Seriously, it's like my favorite thing. I love their smell, the little ball on your shoulder, and the perspective that a new baby brings. It was nice to visit with all the family and just take a break. I have had no bone pain since Sunday. One of the tender mercies of everyone's fasting and prays.

Monday morning was the MRI early at the hospital. I've had this before so again I knew what to expect but lately they've had a hard time finding veins for me to insert the IV. Sometimes I wish we had a number that we could show how many times we've been stuck for an IV, so when you try to tell the professional where to stick you, they'd listen. Really, I don't need to hear how good you are at sticking an IV, I just want you to get it the first time, not the fourth. Yes, it keeps taking every one four times before someone gets my IV. Good thing I'm ok with needles, but seriously, I'm going to look like I'm a drug addict pretty soon. The MRI was fine and the results showed up on my KChart an hour-and-a-half later. I wasn't going to read them until the doctor called but I did. Here is what I saw:

MRI Results:

Numerous cerebral metastases are identified scattered throughout both cerebral hemispheres and cerebellar hemispheres. 

That was the first line I read. Hmmm... that can't be good.

Numerous enhancing brain metastases are identified. A small amount of vasogenic edema is seen surrounding the larger metastases. A selection of the largest metastases are measured as follows:
1. Left middle frontal gyrus region 11 mm.
2. Medial right caudate head 7 mm.
3. Anterior-inferior left frontal lobe 9 mm.
4. Medial superior aspect of left cerebellar hemisphere adjacent to vermis 13 mm.
5. 2 adjacent metastases are seen at the posterior margin of the right cerebellar hemisphere 

    measuring 14 mm and 11 mm.

Now I know why the constant headaches. My cancer doctor is out of town this week but the results were sent to my radiation doctor and she talked to me about them later that afternoon. Honestly, Shad and I had already cried over the results and I can't do that for very long because my head really starts to hurt bad so we decided we'd treat ourselves to a caramel apple from "The Country Mercantile," after the appointment. My radiation appointments are late in the afternoon, early evening; so when the doctor came to walk into the room, she hung her head down and made a sad face. I just said, "We already know the results, can you just hurry and explain what we have to do so we can go get a caramel apple from the mercantile before it closes?" She just looked at us, smiled and sat down to write out her notes. This is what will be happening for the cancer in my brain:

1. Start taking Dexamethasose 4 mg tablets (I think this is for pain flare ups after radiation)

   - take 4 times daily

   - side effects: insomnia, weight gain, thrush, acid reflux

      *Really - weight gain (I've yet to be the skinny cancer patient)

2. Radiation Therapy

   - whole brain radiation - 15 treatments

   - side effects: hair loss, skin reaction (sunburn on forehead & earlobes)

      *Again, Really - (I just got my hair back to the length it was before I lost it last time)

   - also long term/short term memory loss

   GOAL: get rid of the disease in the brain

3. Medications: Dexamethasone, Memantine

   - help with headaches and protect memory

   - STOP ibuprofen

I asked if it came back to the brain later, what do they do? She said Stereotactic Radiosurgery.

So as soon as we left, we raced to the Mercantile, just to find out they stay open an hour later, and they're out of my plain caramel apples. What? How does that happen? So we went to the next best thing, Huckleberry Ice cream and it was gone too!! This was just a bad day all the way around.

Which finally gets us caught up to today. I went in early for my radiation treatment because they also had to do the mapping for the radiation that will be happening on my brain. That was an interesting experience. It's amazing to me the concoctions that people come up with for the medical field. So I walk into the room where the CT scan is and the lady goes to explain what she is about to do to me. Now, I'm not one that needs to take medication to help calm me down for tight places like a CT scan or MRI but I do close my eyes and just talk myself through it. Because lets get real, tight spaces where you can't get out, not a first choice for a good time, but this was different. She showed me where I'd lay down like normal but then she showed me this rectangular hard piece of plastic. She explained to me how she was going to put it in water and after I laid down, she'd put it on my face and it would be very warm but cools down quickly. She would stretch it around my face to make a mask for the scans. She said not to worry because after it's in the water it'll be vented so I can breath through it. Uh huh! And then she'd mold it around my head. Sure, that sounds like going to DisneyWorld, "lets do it," I thought to myself. Ya, well DisneyWorld may be my happy place but this was not. I was brave and made it all the way through it without complaining or saying anything once but oh boy! That has to be the closest I've ever come to having a panic attack. Not only did she mold it around my face, she tacked it down, like with screws, all the way around my head! There was no getting off the table even if I wanted too.

Tomorrow morning is my bone biopsy. I can't imagine that's going to feel to great but I did say, I don't want to feel anything, whatever that takes. So I'll try to make another update tomorrow. I apologize for the length of this but I do want to include some details of things, so that one day, when I print this into a blog book, my family can read it and say, "Mom did hard things, so I can do hard things." I believe in miracles! Despite all the bad news, there's evidence that God knows me and is aware of my situation every day. Those tender mercies in my life usually come through you. Thank you for keeping me and my family in your prayers and acting on the promptings you receive throughout the day. I love you!