Day 55: Chicago Day

My entire day was spent in Chicago getting a variety of things done. Most of my time was spent counting ceiling tiles, finding imperfections in wall paint, and listening to my iPhone's music. I started off getting a lumbar puncture with chemo, followed by a bone marrow biopsy. We believe it was 4th or 5th one. We've lost count now. So, my lower back feels a bit like a crater at this point. Then, I had to do a pulminary test of my lungs and heart. That was kind of interesting. They injected me with a contrast dye, much like they do with a CT Scan, and then they placed me in front of a machine that takes photos of my heart and lungs about every .3 seconds. The tech told me that my heart and lungs looked good. And then, because of my headaches, they scheduled me for a blood patch on my spinal column. For those that don't know, the blood patch can actually help seal off any leakage of spinal fluid that is as a result of the lumbar puncture. This leakage can cause severe headaches which is what we're suspecting I'm enduring. However, as it turns out, having the blood patch done depends greatly on what your platelet levels are in your bloodstream. Mine are currently at 47,000. They won't do a blood patch unless the levels are 70,000 or above. Obviously if my blood won't clot enough, the patch really isn't going to help anything. So that was a bust. Instead, I got some new medication for the headaches called Fioricet. Apparently it's not quite as strong as Percocet, but has codine and caffeine in it to help, and it's regularly used to treat migraines and high tension headaches. So, hopefully, it'll provide me some relief when they get bad enough.

I don't have anything going on the rest of the week except for a blood draw tomorrow at Dr. Park's office.

This week has been riddled with nausea too. Nothing sucks more than trying to eat when you feel like it's going to come right back up. I have been fortunate enough not to have thrown up yet, but I've been close a few times. Hopefully not having as much chemo this week will help with that some too.