Scattered Thoughts . . .

I was imaging the photosphere of the sun one morning and noticed that a sunspot eerily resembled some skin cancer that I had around that time.   The sunspot was approximately twice the length of the diameter of Earth.  My skin cancer was only about 8mm in length.  Additionally, I was seeing a shocking similarity between granules on the surface of the sun's photosphere  (each approximately 1000 miles across)  and the speckled UV damage of my skin (approximately 1-2mm each)! I've always noticed that, in many ways, the astronomical world of vast and infinite space resembles the microscopic world.  Shapes, networks and structure are comparable.  Both are equally vast but the scale is mind-bogglingly different.  When I see how vast space really is, it has always made me a little queasy and gives me the heebie-jeebies!  This incredibly vast difference in scale between space and humans is stuff I've actually had nightmares about since very early childhood.  Actually, my earliest

After Sheila's terribly rough night (and frightening) and middle-of-the-night ambulance ride to the hospital almost two weeks ago, we had a couple of follow-up medical appointments. Those are out of the way now but a few more appointments are scheduled for the next eight weeks or so.  (Plus, a few appointments for myself in those same eight weeks for diagnostics and treatment for my own serious health issues... this is a couple of months neither one of us are looking forward to.)  To refresh everyone's memory... Sheila is in treatment and still under constant medical care after her second fight (in ten years) with breast cancer. She has another nine years of treatment to go this time around and it has been rather rough going thus far. Honestly, if we were to compare her treatment today to treatments two+ decades ago, what she is experiencing is... let's say mediocre... by comparison. That being said, her quality of life has been rather low regardless. Sheila is ol

Heading back to Radiation Oncology... she looks as though she is walking with some purpose, doesn't she? I'm very far behind in blog entries as well as being very far behind in accomplishing things that need to be done around the house so it is time to try to put together a few blog entries in an attempt to doing some catching up.  My health over the past couple of months has been rather poor, generally speaking. As a result, I feel as though nothing has been accomplished since before Sheila's cancer diagnosis... so, nothing really has been accomplished since around the time of our time at the lake house last summer... and that's a loonnnngggg time! We had a short break in Sheila's treatment from Thanksgiving until the first week of January. This was a much needed break for both of us but not nearly long enough. Now we are back into hospital visits and medical appointments a couple of times each week. Unfortunately, I'm still exhausted! Sheila feels th

Today, Sheila moved into her last phase of radiation treatment.  Well... Sheila thought this same thing 11 years ago (her  last phase) but here we are again.  Sheila is now in her Boost Phase of radiation treatment and she is pretty happy about that! This last phase is a "boost" of radiation to only the area of the tumor. Up until today, she had been getting radiation to the entire right side of her chest... from the lymph nodes under her armpit to the center of her chest. Now, she is getting one focused beam of radiation to just the area of her tumor for seven treatments. The good thing about this Boost Phase is that most of the tissue and skin that has been burned and irritated over the past 26 treatments will now be able to heal without additional radiation making this large area worse. Sheila is definitely happy about this news. The itching, burning and peeling was getting pretty rough for a bit. Now, these last seven radiation treatments will be focused to a r

Another lunch in the hospital cafe. Sheila has moved into a new stage of side effects. This new stage of side effects has appeared only about a week before she moves into a new stage of radiation treatment. More on the additional change in treatment another time because I want to write about the current issue... burning, peeling and itching. At this point in radiation treatment, Sheila's skin is showing some burns. She has already been showing signs of a "tan" for weeks and we have known that the tissue beneath the skin has been getting irritated but now she's getting into burn territory.  Sheila has been a little bit swollen since her surgery and the radiation isn't really allowing the swelling to go down. She had already been feeling "tender" in the tissue under the skin and that continues to slowly worsen. Sheila says it isn't bad but it is obvious by her guarded reactions to things that she does feel tender in various areas.  The other

Taking a break in the hospital's cafe. Things have pretty much moved into the extremely monotonous stage of treatment. For the most part, we do the same exact thing every single day. We go to the hospital and see the same people each and every day.  Our days are so monotonous that Sheila says she feels as though she is in the movie "Groundhog Day". Each week, we have to squeeze in a visit with the Radiation Oncologist... another day we squeeze in a visit with the nurse... another day is another doctor... and another day is acupuncture for oncology patients. Even with these added visits, things have become quite monotonous. The daily radiation has already started to create a visible burn like a sunburn. The entire right side of her chest... all the way around to under her arm... is getting darker like she spent too much time in the sun. There is some swelling... some relatively minor pain (especially if she attempts to run)... and definitely some irritation from

Unfortunately, Sheila's health has been deteriorating more and more each day since beginning her radiation treatment last week. It actually has been pretty frightening watching this happen! The primary reason for this deteriorating health is that she picked up a cold right when treatment began and her overall health has been spiraling downward ever since.  Sleeping has been difficult for her for a number of reasons mostly related to her cancer treatments and surgeries starting 11 years ago so she is now getting worn down to dangerous levels. This second fight with cancer has only exasperated the problem.  She is also dealing with a weakened immune system now because she has started radiation treatment. About a week ago, she added a nasty cold into the mix which includes her radiation-induced weakened immune system and the result is that her declining health has quickly become out of control. Her Radiation Oncologist noticed this declining health in our visit to her yeste

Yesterday, we spent the day at the hospital running from appointment to appointment and squeezing in a couple of unscheduled stops too.  We had thought it would be a straightforward day with no significant news (which means we expected no stress and no problems) . Not only did we receive some new news but we found that there is such a thing as different levels of bad news. We started at Genetics. Here we discussed new genetic tests that help determine whether there are any known genetic components to Sheila's cancer. If we find that there are any known genetic components, then Sheila's children and grandchildren will be on a completely different and more aggressive preventive medicine schedule than that recommended for the general public.  The purpose of this genetic testing is to rate the risk of cancer being carried genetically through statistics and common cancer genes in order to avoid potential cancer getting out of hand in any children or grandchildren before the r

The following morning after we sat down with the doctor to discuss the results of Sheila's mammogram and ultrasound imaging, we were headed back to the hospital for a biopsy. Sheila has been down this road before. Her first biopsy was 11 years ago, then surgery, radiation, chemo and the years of follow-up testing, imaging and exams. But, this morning, we were back at square one again. I have to say that it was not a pleasant feeling to be back at square one again. We both were so anxious that we thought we couldn't eat. We sat down to eat but we both commented that we had no desire for food whatsoever. The funny thing is... once we started eating, we pretty much finished our meals. I think the food absorbed some of the stomach acid being pumped into our empty stomachs due to our nerves. We felt a bit better after eating. On the drive to the hospital this morning our conversation changed from a pep talk type of thing giving positive reinforcement to someone who has already