Getting better

Today is the last day of my recovery period.  It was a remarkable week.  On Friday and Saturday, I was a total wreck.  But then it got a little better every day.  Yesterday and today, I was largely back to normal.  Normal, in these strange times, means that I have aches and pains, and that I don’t run at full speed.  In particular, it means that my stomach and my digestion are off.  I have a hard time ingesting enough food, and it’s a struggle to digest it.  My stomach is a big, hard metal ball that just sits in my abdomen uncomfortably, day and night.

Flucha was getting a bit concerned about this and started to find out more.  She is an active member of the Academy of Google Docs.  She searches for symptoms online, gleans options from websites and puzzles together diagnoses.  Sometimes she’s right with this and sometimes she’s not.  Her verdict on my belly:  Ascites.  This is not something I had heard of before, but the explanation was simple.  Just as a tumor had attracted liquid into the pleural sac that compressed my lung and made breathing almost impossible, a different tumor had now invited liquid into my abdominal space.  Ascites is the condition of having excessive abdominal liquid.

Liquid in the abdomen would press against the stomach and decrease the amount of space available to it.  The body normally compensates by growing a proper beer belly.  I certainly don’t have that.  But I still have fairly strong abdominal muscles.  Maybe they keep the belly expansion in check.  Could this explain all my troubles?  A stomach with less space is filled more quickly.  Digestion might suffer.  Even shortness of breath, something I’m still struggling with, is among the symptoms, said Google Doc Flucha.  It sounded quite convincing to me.

The day after her diagnosis, I called my doctor.  I wanted to run the idea by him and give him time to prepare should action need to be taken during our next appointment.  I didn’t need to have bothered.  He was instantly dismissive.  “This is impossible”, he said.  “One would see from your belly.”  He continued to blame the side effects, even though I hadn’t taken the drugs in four days.

Today I went up to the hospital to see him.  He looked at and listened to my belly and didn’t change his mind.  It would be like reading tea leaves to propose a reason for my discomfort, he said.  But he was getting a bit concerned himself.  I guess what I’m experiencing is a bit out of the ordinary.  He gave me the go-ahead for the second chemo run but said that I’d need another CT if things didn’t improve until next week.

It’s impossible for me to say when this started.  When my current misery began right before Christmas, I was in so much pain and general discomfort that I didn’t bother to isolate individual aspects.  But I’m fairly sure this has been going on for two weeks at least.  It’s no fun, and I want it to end.  There’s a good chance this is the cancer growing happily, but it’s not too late for hope yet.