5 day extension on radiation

Found out today that radiation will not end this coming Friday but will extend another 5 days till Friday week which will be September 18th. Probably my mistake but possibly a result of having a couple of holidays fall in the time period from when I started till this coming Monday which is Lazy Day.......commonly referred to as Labor Day.

In any event, wheter it's the 11th or the 18th is almost immaterial in that it is pretty close to being finished and when it is I only have 5 days beyond that where I do chemo at double dosages then 25 days off. Any way you look at it, the time frame is pretty much upon us where the daily regimen will be over and the monthly maintenance begins.

I have been in the hospital every single day since Father's Day except for some Saturday's and Sundays. I did spend Saturday and Sunday in the hospital here before brain surgery and I also spent the week end in the hospital in Houston after brain surgery.

Will meet with Guy next week and try to tweak my schedule a little bit and let you know.

On the advice side of the blog, let me say this about "support drugs".

You can't do anything about the dosages of certain drugs like the chemo and the antibodies. You have to follow the regime set by the Docs as they really know what's up in that department.

Despite that, the support drugs for brain swelling, head aches, sleeping problems and nausea are within your ability to control. You can tell the Doc what's going on with all that and in each case, they've made a slight adjustment. I don't know where they were when I started but I know that the adjustments that have been made resulted in me not having head aches anymore and the resulting abandonment of the pain killers has made my life much better than before.

The same holds true for the adjustments in steroids. No more standing in the front yard at 3 .a.m. In fact, I probably am getting more hours of sleep than most of you are. Can't say enough about how wonderful it is to have those gone.

So, having said all that about pain meds, steroids and sleeping pills, know that you have the ability to talk to the doc about how the dosages are working or not working for you. It's a good thing and I feel really good about it.

Tom and Stan, "just ask". If it gives you a hassle, just tell the docs.

Off for the week end. Ooooh Rah.

sr.