Fire Ants and Doctors

Monday was a big, big day. I know you can empathize with me when I say my weekend was stressful anticipating what would be discussed...come Monday.

I hand delivered the MRI and X-Rays to Dr. Sharts on Friday and I wondered often if he had looked at them. Did he still think he could help me? Did he talk with his colleagues in Pittsburgh? I even worried about the G-20 Summit being there and the people he needed to speak with not being available because much of Pittsburgh was shutdown. It's the little things that can drive us crazy when we awake in the middle of the night.

First appointment was with Dr. Mahajan, my oncologist. He is always so pleasant and that sometimes gives me a false sense of security, that everything will be okay. We talked about the MRI I had on Friday and discussed other issues. Told him I had a phone message from Carolina Radiation when I returned home on Friday from having the MRI, stating my first radiation treatment was scheduled for Monday at 4, (that added more weekend stress). He wants the treatments to start soon. He also wants me to start chemo therapy in conjunction with the radiation treatments. He said this will do two things; it will kill rogue cancer cells and will also improve the results from the radiation. Another pull on the wagon.

My pain medication was low and I needed a new prescription. The medication that I am taking is a derivative of morphine, no refills are allowed and a new prescription must be written each time. The prescription cannot be faxed or called in, pharmacies can only fill with an original prescription, hand carried. And yes, that is a pain too.

Immediately following was the meeting with Dr. Sharts, a neurologist and clinical assistant professor at ECU. Dr. Sharts had reviewed the MRI results and talked it over with his colleagues. This is going to be very difficult. The growth has completely wrapped around one trunk of the sciatic nerve, the longest and widest nerve in the human body. (See diagram and you can click on the photo to make it larger to view the S2) The nerve has several branches coming through the bones in our sacrum going down our legs and controlling a number of important functions of our bodies. Am I lucky or what?

Dr. Sharts thinks he can save most of the nerve. The S2 vertebra most likely will not be saved as it is completely encapsulated by the growth. But there are no guarantees. The sciatic nerve controls; legs, feet, feeling, skin, bladder, bowels....is that enough or should I go on? Frightened yet? Well, you are just having to read this, it was me he was talking about. But, I digress, he feels confident he can perform the surgery, just needs to firm up the plan with Dr. Brillant. Dr. Brillant has to get everything out of the way (carefully too I might add) so Dr. Sharts can actually do the surgery. There will be an operation from the front and another from the back. Did I say this was going to be really, really difficult? Dr. Brillant will move stuff out of the way, Dr. Semer will remove all those unneeded female parts, and Dr. Sharts will work on the growth removal being ever so careful not to harm those sweet sciatic nerves. Another doctor will be called in to do the reconstructive surgery on the bones. Bone tissue will be used to repack the area that will be removed due to the nasty infestation.

Tired yet...I certainly was and I still had a radiation appointment and a school board meeting at 7 to chair.

More tomorrow....stay tuned. We still have radiation to talk about and I got stung by fire ants. I hate 'em.