Hi All,
I apologize for not updating lately, but there’s not tons of news to report from this end. Nonetheless, some big “milestones” have been reached over the past 2 weeks that I wanted to share. Tomorrow will mark 8 weeks since I had my surgery. As you could probably tell from hanging out with me, talking to me on the phone or even reading my blog posts over the past 8 weeks, I had not been in the clearest of states of mind. The combination of medication I was on, lack of sleep and irritation to my brain from the actual surgery definitely took a toll on my cognitive state; mainly in the areas of short term memory, mood changes, being able to concentrate for an extended period of time and really just being able to make sense while talking or writing. (Right now I’m really trying to avoid reading what I wrote in my past blog entries for fear that I have shamed every English/writing/grammar teacher I have ever had.) Further, over the past 8 weeks, I experienced some troubles with finding the right words I want to use while having conversations and even had trouble using the correct sounds in words while speaking, (two things that are definitely hard to deal with for an aspiring speech-language pathologist). So, related to all these things, the first milestone I wanted to mention was that in the past week and a half, I’d say that most of the symptoms mentioned above have resolved. I have felt relatively normal and back to my “old self” again. I still experience some word-finding issues every once and a while and feel agitated when I try to multi-task, but those things get better everyday as well. Since I have been feeling more cognitively normal as of late, I’ve been trying my best to do some of the things I would get frustrated with when I attempted to do them before i.e. writing ‘thank-you’ notes and accomplishing the work I need to do to finish my fall semester classes. Welcome back to normalcy, right?!
The other “milestone” I reached was last week when I saw my neurosurgeon for the last time. I had an appointment with Dr. Moulding last Wednesday for my 6-month follow-up and I was discharged from his services at that time because my incision has healed and he felt that my symptoms from surgery were resolved or would eventually be where they needed to be with time. Dr. Moulding will stay on my case for consulting purposes and as a source of opinion and connections to other facilities if I need them in the future, but I will no longer have to see him directly.
Dr. Belman (oncologist) is officially now my primary doctor. Last Wednesday I had my “off week” visit with him and he said he felt that things were going well with my treatment and he scheduled me to begin treatment week #3 tomorrow (Tuesday the 1st).
I had one other doctor’s appointment last Wednesday, (it was quite the fun-filled day at St. Luke’s), and that was with the ophthalmologist. There I got one more test done. Results of that test came back normal and so I will not have to see him for another year to monitor the possibility of abnormal cells forming in and around my optic nerve.
So that’s it as far as updates about me goes! I did want to quickly mention, (and there will be more info on this sometime later in the week), but on Tuesday, February 8th, the Bangor High School Girls’ basketball team will be holding a Coaches vs. Cancer event during their basketball game against Northwestern. All donations raised at this event will go to the local Relay for Life team “Footprints in the Sand”. (Relay for Life is of course the major national fundraising event of the American Cancer Society.) This year the event is being held in honor of ME! Needless to say, I am VERY honored to be honored at this event. J It would mean a lot to me if my family and friends could try to attend this event on the 8th and support the cause! Like I said before, I will be writing another blog post soon dedicated to this event, but for now you can find more information at the following website:
Until next time!
xoxo,
xoxo,
*Casey
No comments:
Post a Comment