Not giving up hope

More intense pain last night, probably the worst I've ever felt, a nine out of ten on the pain scale. This led to gingerly walking up to the cancer center with mom and dad, and asking to be seen immediately. They put me back in the chemo area, and Marie took care of me quickly, accessing my port, starting a drip, notifying Carrie, and then, beautifully, starting IV Dilaudid.

Carrie came in to examine me. In her words, "I'm worried." Somehow they didn't phase me, though. When Glick finally came in, he reiterated the statement, but still admitted there was opportunity for hope. The pain COULD be tumor necrosis, the process of tumor dying. Sudden onset of intense pain is consistent with that. But he said that the pain is my liver, and he fears it's getting larger. Even though my liver function tests are fine. See, it just seems to me that not all the dots are connecting up to point to cancer getting worse. But maybe I'm just in denial.

So, first on the agenda: manage the pain. Because I'm sort of bad about taking enough pain meds, they prescribed a Fentanyl patch that will release a constant supply of narcotic. We put it on about two hours ago, but it takes a few hours to kick in. We'll see how that goes. I also have the Dilaudid for breakthrough pain. He didn't lower my dose of Decadron, but instead doubled the dose of Prilosec. Grr.

And finally, I did get chemo today, although I asked to hold off on the Zometa. It makes me sick, so I'd rather wait until I'm feeling a little better. Hopefully next week.

I'm home now. I've managed to nap a bit - three infusions of IV Dilaudid helped with that. The pain is still there, but now there's a larger system in place to help manage it.

Wish I had a better report. But like I said, I'm not giving up hope.