Good Night, Westley

Overall, today was a good day. I felt perhaps as good as I've felt in a long time though I can't remember how long it's been. It didn't start off so good. I woke up at 3:00AM with pain in my hips and legs, took a Vicodin, and then fought with the fire for 2 hours. Finally got back to bed at 5:00 and slept until the kids, and hip pain, woke me up at 7:00. When I got up, the pain in my hips was pretty harsh, so I took my meds, all of the morning doses plus a Vicodin, and spent an hour trying to find a position that hurt less than the rest. By 8:00 I felt a little better, and very sleepy, so I went back to bed until my wife woke me at 10:00 to get ready for my radiation treatment. This time, I awoke mostly pain free and managed to keep it that way for the rest of the day.

I spoke to the pain doctor yesterday and told him how my weekend went. As I had predicted and hoped, he told me to increase the dosage of the pain meds and decrease the laxative. So far, so good with these new dosages. It's not quite there as I'm still having to take Vicodin with it, but I took less today and he said that the methadone has a long half life which means that it takes a bit to build up in my system before becoming fully effective and will take a bit to get out of my system when the time comes. If we've reached the right level, then tomorrow should prove it. I'm supposed to follow up with him again on Thursday.

Pain issues aside, I overall felt well today. I was more alert and motivated with no bowel or appetite issues to speak of. I'm hoping that this carries over into tomorrow because my goal is to drive down to Baltimore to attend at least one day of the company's sales meeting and Wednesday night's team dinner. If I'm up for it, it will be a good test of my resilience in driving more than 5 miles and proof that the new regimen of pain medicine is working or at least getting there.

Today was Picture Day in my radiation treatment. A little tongue in cheek title assigned to the day that they take a new X-ray before administering the treatment which they do once per week, I'm assuming the purpose is to verify that the calibration is still correct. Oddly today I didn't feel anything during the radiation part. I had joked on Monday that I was developing a Pavlovian twitch whenever I hear the buzzer that sounds while the radiation is being administered. Up until today, I could always swear that I felt a slight air movement and somethig almost like a light jolt whenever the buzzerr sounded, but today I felt nothing. Not sure what that means, if anything. 11 down, 3 more to go. The radiation oncologist told me in the beginning that the soonest I would feel any benefit from the treatment would be this week. Perhaps that explains that lack of feeling at the buzzer today? Perhaps it explains why I felt better overall? It may also explain why the pain that I have had the last couple of days has been less the usual back pain and more the neurotic hip and leg pain? One thing at a time I guess. Let's see what the morrow brings.

I've really stopped trying to predict what the next day or days will bring and am viewing my health a little like the Dread Pirate Roberts when he tells Westley "Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning." This morning was a little brutal, tomorrow morning may be better, and neither will be an indicator of the next.