First off and foremost I am so sorry that I haven't updated my blog since early December. I thank you for your continued prayers.
Here is a 3 minute video I made with pics of my treatments during 2023. It was posted on my FaceBook but incase you didn't see it, here it is. *I do not own the rights to this song. Faithfully - TobyMac
This has been the most challenging post I have made to date, for a couple of reasons. I will be transparent for a moment. I have been discouraged and overwhelmed for the last 5 weeks or so. At times I feel defeated but through all this I still try to remain positive. So here is my update...
I will start off with a win. My left leg pain has healed so much that for the most part I don't have pain in it anymore. I do still have some tingling/numbness on my lower left leg but the sciatic pain down the back of my leg is gone. My low back pain has also healed. I am guessing this is due to the healing of the disc bulge I had at the L4 - L5 area of my back. Yay!!! Because of this my orthopedic doctor (Dr Patt) and I decided to cancel the spinal injection I was scheduled to receive. I do still have neuropathy in the bottoms of both of my feet. I am still doing at home therapies for this and am seeing tiny bits of improvement.
Now for the rest of the story. Some of you might remember that my oncologist (Dr Brown) had set me up for a neurologic consult for my leg pain/numbness/tingling I was having but he couldn't get me in till mid January. Shortly after my last post I started to have right arm and hand pain but only at night while I was sleeping. It felt like I hit my funny bone but times 10. The pain would last about 20 minutes or so and then subside. I would then get a few hours of sleep and then it would happen all over again. This started out slow but as the weeks went on it continually got worse. I told this to Dr Brown at my appointment on January 10. We decided to hold off on my Keytruda injection that day. A side effect sometimes with Keytruda is neuritises (inflammation in nerves). Dr Brown decided that we needed more information from my neurologist (Dr Sergey) to determine if I can continue with the Keytruda injections. Dr Brown did send me for a CT Scan of my chest, abdomen and pelvis to check for returned cancer. I am happy to say nothing showed up! Praise God!!!
I saw Dr Sergey on Monday and he reevaluated my case, since I no longer needed the attention of my left leg and he focused more on the right arm pain/tingling in my fingers. He ordered more blood work and another Nerve Conduction Velocity Test which I will be having on Tuesday this next week. He will retest my left leg and test my right arm and hand. Hopefully after that we will be able to make a new game plan moving forward.
I will say that I have gotten the blood test results back and a couple of the tests are high and not in good ranges. Obviously I have spent some time with Google and there is definitely something going on but I will let Dr Sergey figure out exactly what that is. I will let you know that my whole body is inflammed and I now have constant tingling/numbness in my right hand day and night. It affects every finger except my pinkey. I do get a few episodes at night where it feels like someone is driving a hot poker through the middle of my hand. It usually only lasts about 10-20 minutes and then subsides for a few hours. Because of this I have been having to take some pain meds (hydrocodone) to help me sleep. Dr Sergey did suggest that I try wearing a wrist brace at night to help. I ordered one and have worn it the last three nights and it has helped some, except now I have developed a rash on my wrist under where the brace is. If it isn't one thing it's another.
As for my left hand I do occasionally get some tingling/numbness in my fingers from time to time at night but it doesn't last long and so far goes away. I feel like doing anything these days takes a great deal of effort on my part and I tire really easily. I am walking more upright but my muscles in my legs again tire really quickly. It is hard to do anything with my fingers being numb. I have started to drop things lately because I can't feel if it is there or not. I'm really hoping for some answers this next week after my test on Tuesday.
Prayers:
- For complete healing from all of this!!!!!
- For hope during some of the long hard days.
- That the tingling/numbness doesn't affect my left hand and that the right hand gets better.
- For a quick fix to all of these unexplained symptoms so I can get back on Keytruda. Dr Brown still wants me on this as a precaution for the foreseeable future.
Pic: Noel and I picking Kylie up from musical practice
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