Can you believe Halloween is now over? Thanksgiving and Christmas are just around the corner! We had a fun time last night – we took the girls to my mom’s house in LaPalma and trick-o-treated around the neighborhood with my family and our really good friend’s and their kids – I even walked the majority of the route. Jillian and I didn’t finish the last leg of the route since we were both tired from walking so much (toward the end, Jillian rode in the wagon my brother-in-law was pulling) and she was getting hot (Jillian dressed up as a pegasus/pony and Kandice was batgirl). It was so nice to see them sooo excited going together to each house!
This week is back to my “work” – doing things around the house and doing my exercises (starting this week, I’m not going to go to physical therapy since I’ve been going for over a year now and taking a “break” until the beginning of the year to get other “stuff” done). I’m going to see my plastic surgeon for finishing my reconstruction on Wednesday and actually doing the procedure next Wednesday. I am going to follow-up with my oncologist to see if I need to stay on my cancer meds. I’m back at my pre-steroid weight but my body is not the same – I have a “gut”, which I never had before, and a lot less muscle tone so I have to do cardio to get rid of the gut and strengthen more to get my back stronger. The problem is, if I do any functional standing (doing an activity while standing), my back pain increases. But, the good thing is, the more I lie down on my foam roll and stretch out my back, the longer I can tolerate functional standing. It is definitely an alignment and strength issue. If I stand, gravity just likes to push me down and puts my spine in a kyphotic position (hump in my back) that creates a lot of pain in my lumbar spine (if it curves a lot in my upper back, my lower back also curves more creating pain) and my muscles in my spine are too weak to push against gravity right now. So, stretching on the foam roll, helps put my spine in a better alignment with less “hump” and if I do strengthening excercises for my back while lying on the foam roll, my back can hold up against gravity when I stand for a short while and hopefully once my back gets stronger, I can stand against gravity for longer! That is the goal! I was also going to walk in our jacuzzi but the problem with that is when I get out, I have more pain and am really tired!! After being so buoyant in the water, coming out adds more pressure and I’m already tired from doing some activity in the water; once I get out, it feels like I’m carrying a ton of bricks! But the good thing is I’m on the road to recovery but now the uphill battle is plateauing off and is taking longer and longer to improve just the slighest little bit! My dizziness has not seemed to improve but I hope one day, it will start to. I’m surprised that we are almost at the end of 2010 and 2011 is not too far away! It’s just going to get busier and busier!!
Got word back from my spine surgeon friend and my interventional radiologist (who did my vertebroplasties). They both say that from the MRI, there is nothing that bad in my spine that warrants surgery or another vertebroplasty and believe it’s most likely due to the kyphosis (hump in my back) that is causing the increased pain since it’s more of a postural pain (not constant). The curvature of my upper spine effects my lower spine so when I stand or sit without support, my back can’t keep the proper posture against gravity in a vertical position. Gravity is not my friend right now! I went to PT the other day and did a lot of stretches for my back and shoulders (like lie on a half foam roll) and did some strengthening exercises in a horizontal position and it felt better after doing it. But later, after standing up and doing activities in that upright position, here comes the pain! I probably have to do more stretches and strengthening in the horizontal position to get my spine and core muscles stronger so I think I’m going to up my physical therapy intensity (either do it more at home or go to PT more than once a week). Water therapy will be good, too, so I will have to utilize our jacuzzi more (I need to get some water toys). I will probably go ahead with completing my reconstruction to get that out of the way. I may talk to my neurologist to see if I need to see a pain specialist. We’ll see. I guess I should be glad there is no major problems in my spine – I just have to get stronger and stretch out more.
I had my MRI of my spine and X-ray of my kidneys, ureter and bladder (KUB) done last week and got the results back. Went to see my urologist yesterday and she says there are no signs of any kidney stones and no urinary tract infections! Yay! She says I have to drink more water so that the stones don’t come back and I don’t have to follow up with her for another 6 months! I got the results of my spine MRI and it says there are some mild changes in my spine but nothing major. We’re going to send a copy to the doctor who did my vertebroplasty so we can see if I need to do another one. With the amount of pain I have in my low back when I stand, I’m kinda disappointed that there wasn’t anything major since it feels worse than before and limits how long I can stand or sit. I need to be lying down or in a recumbent position to not have so much pain. I am also going to send a copy of the MRI to a friend who is a spine surgeon in Philadelphia to see what he thinks, if there is anything I need to do to relieve this pain and help me get more functional. Last night, I was able to go to a free educational inservice/dinner (my friend Irene took me) and saw a bunch of my former coworkers and had a good time (the speaker and the food were good, too!). I had to take my walker to get from the parking garage to the restaurant but once we had sat down for dinner, I didn’t use my walker to get around since it was a tight area and, as long as I had something to balance with (walls, furniture) I was ok. The dizziness is a little worse than before and I feel like it’s not getting better but I’m trying to endure it as much as I can. I think possibly the pain in my back could also be making me more dizzy since the pain and dizziness are getting worse at the same rate. I went to see my plastic surgeon and he said to address my back pain first before we complete my reconstruction. I felt that was a good idea. So, the saga continues…
Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
I am now going ahead and following-up on my medical stuff I have yet to complete. Since I had the brain tumor in April 2009, I put the completion of my reconstruction on hold to deal with the tumor and now, a year and a half later, I am finally seeing my plastic surgeon on Monday to finish that up (and possibly seeing if there is anything I can do with my stretched skin). Also since having the Lithotripsy (the shockwave therapy to get rid of my kidneystones), I am going to see my urologist at the end of the month and will be having an KUB (an x-ray of my kidneys/ureters/bladder) next week. I am also having more back pain, especially when I stand for a few minutes, in my low back and I think it has to do with the 2 lumbar vertebrae that I didn’t get reinforced with the vertebroplasty (since they looked ok at the time) – I think that now that I am more active, those 2 vertebrae are getting a lot of pressure on them that they are not able to hold it very well. There seems like I have a lot I need to take care of but at least I am on the upswing of my recovery. I do feel a whole lot better but still dizzy and if I can get rid of the back pain, I will be much better overall!
Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Last week was Kandice’s first full week at her new school. I walked her on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings to school – it’s still too hot to walk to/from school in the afternoon but I also have to pace myself since I can’t do everything like I did before! I want to be able to do the things around the house like I used to but now it takes me 10 times longer to get them done since I need multiple breaks! I have therapy on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I try not to do 2 major activities in 1 day (for now). The more active I am, the more my back hurts and the more tired I get. I am going to see if there is anything else wrong with my back since it’s still very painful, especially when I’m up doing stuff. It limits the amount of time I can spend doing something (like I need to sit down multiple times). It’s starting to get cooler so hopefully I will be able to walk Kandice more but I want to be able to tolerate more activity. We had some friends over on Sunday and I had a great time and wasn’t too exhausted – just a little tired but I was able to rest on Monday and spent some time playing with the girls so that was good. If the back pain gets better, I think I can do much more even with the dizziness. But as long as I’m dizzy, I can’t drive which drives me nuts!
Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Satomi's Cancer Blog 
