"Cliff hanger"

posted by Mary Lello, Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 7:00 AM

I was told my last post was a real "cliff hanger" by Greg, in Colorado. So guess I need to let folks know how we're doing with the steroids. We've gone up to 4 mg/day and Jim is doing better. We just aren't sure if he is doing as well as he should be doing at this point. This is the hard part of all this, not knowing what is 'normal', what is a red flag or what we just have to accept.

He's still struggling with right sided issues; his hand doesn't always do what he wants it to do, his foot - though not being a club foot now, still scuffs a great deal - and today he was really struggling with word retrieval, which he finds very frustrating.

Is all this normal for 3 weeks after radiation and chemo? Is all this just swelling still going on as radiation continues to cook? Is this what should be happening and there is a far better place on the other side of all this? Man, it's just so hard to know!

I was able to get Jim to my office yesterday and gave him an acupuncture treatment. He seemed to feel a lot better and was functioning better after that treatment. Which felt really good, of course. Heck if that's all that is needed then I will devote all my days to treating him!!

We are scheduled to get the MRI next Monday 3/30 and we see Weisburg again on April 2. However, after calling Weisburg's office I got a voice mail saying she is checking into getting the MRI earlier if possible. Not sure if this means they are concerned with where we are at or if they are just trying to respond to MY concerned phone call yesterday.

All THIS is the cliff hanger for us! This MRI is a REAL cliff hanger!! I want to know but I'm also really scared to find out, if you can appreciate this.

Tune in next time ...

Mary