More ups and downs

I've been in hospital more than three weeks now; can't believe it. Developments have been both encouraging and discouraging:

The doctors were paying more attention than I'd thought, and had the nurses remove the catheter earlier this week. What a relief not to be lugging around that smelly thing. So far I am peeing normally, and that's a relief. As long as I have someone to bring my walker to me, I can get to the bathroom on my own pretty well.

Every couple of days I get a little more movement in my left leg; suddenly yesterday morning I could kind of raise my foot by itself and even lift my knee a bit more. It's odd how these movements return suddenly; one second I can't do something, and the next second I can. I continue to feel tight and numb in many locations, including my groin, which feels odd to say the least.

The physiotherapist took me to a stairwell, and showed me I could, with effort and help, get myself up some steps. This was a great relief, because it means I could actually get into and out of my house if I get a day pass. Three weeks ago, that was impossible, so thank goodness for this blessing.

My shoulder pain is up and down. I take oxycodone and look for comfortable positions to sit and lie in.

The worst part: I continue to have great difficulty eating and I've vomited the last two nights. The palliative care doctor was in today and says this can be a permanent feature of spinal cord injury, even with cancer, so I'm discouraged. I'm not getting enough nourishment to feel strong enough to recover. I'm starting a new medication tonight for my poor beleaguered gastrointestinal tract.

Pollyanna moments:

• Today I had to miss my father's 75th-birthday celebrations in Kitchener, but through the miracle of speaker phones, I was able to participate a little. The best part was hearing everyone sing and play "The Blackfly Song," a family favourite that Dad loves.
• Joan D. flew in from Calgary for a couple of days, and I am being treated royally as usual. It's great to see her.
  
• I'm feeling strong enough today to be a little productive, write a letter, do a puzzle, blog, etc. Let's hope I can keep down some food today.
  

A little better today

The past several days have been clouded with an enormous amount of acid reflux, making it very difficult to eat, and causing me to vomit. But today I have a better appetite and the food is going down a little better. I'm hoping some of this is just side effects of the radiation that will go away.

After spending a bit too much time despondently lying abed, I'm getting into my wheelchair more often and trying to do a few more things. For a while there I was really getting into the staring-into-space thing, and it's hard to say how much of that is depression and giving up and learned helplessness, and how much is just enjoying doing bugger-all at this stage in my life. I can while away quite pleasant hours just looking out the window sometimes. This morning I made myself manoeuvre the wheelchair into the bathroom to brush my teeth by myself, the most independent thing I've done in nearly three weeks.

The good news is that each time I stand up with the walker, I feel a little stronger and more confident, and I can now slide my left leg along enough to move forward with both legs going in the same direction. So I can walk after a fashion with the walker, although it's slow and unsteady, and my blood pressure has got so low that I have dizzy spells.

It will probably be another couple of weeks before there's room for me at Bridgepoint Health for more rehab. I get a little physio here most days, but not much.

The food continues to be lousy and the nursing care continues to be exemplary -- not a bad apple in the bunch. I feel well cared for on that level.

One question: will they ever remove the catheter? Am I using it just because I didn't have enough mobility to get to the bathroom, or do I have paralysis preventing me from peeing properly? Nobody seems to want to address this.

Pollyanna moments:

• My cousin Lynne visited, with great photos of her grandkids, and gave me a healing touch treatment.
• My mom is still steadfastly momming me every day (see "learned helplessness").
• I am drowning in chocolate and must call a halt to any more being brought in! Come and eat some for me! Yesterday a chocolate gave me heartburn, in fact; hope that will stop.

Restlessness

I continue to feel incredibly restless and uncomfortable, with a lot of tension in my jaw. Relaxation tapes and Atavan still don't make it easy to sleep, but painkillers help. Much of my day is taken up by eating ice chips; mealtimes are a chore, a big change for someone who was such an enthusiastic eater. When I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, especially naked, it's such a shock I don't know who I'm looking at. My arms and legs are like flabby little sticks and my breasts are not where they used to be. Every couple of days I have a shower, which requires help from two nurses to set me on a commode chair and wheel me under the water.

There's still an iota of improvement in my left leg every day, so tiny that I'm almost afraid to acknowledge it. Outside of my professional life, I have never placed any trust in hope. In the realm of the personal, hope has never stood me in good stead, and in fact has brought me a lot of pain. So I tend to be the sort of person who expects the worst and is thrilled if I'm wrong. These are completely learned responses based on life's experiences. How does one learn to hope? Or how does one unlearn not to hope?

Anyway, I kind of mock-walked in a walker for quite a distance on Thursday, with the physiotherapists helping my bad leg all along the way. I did feel more sensation in my heel, which helped me to know where it was each time they put it in position. Here's my modest hope: that some day I will be strong enough to get around a little in a walker and then can have my catheter removed and take myself to the bathroom.

Many Pollyanna moments:

• Neil flew out from Vancouver for a day just to see me and brought delightful gifts. The best one: he twisted a piece of silver wire into a makeshift tiara that fits perfectly on my head. He also brought fresh fruit, and I must say the ripe apricot was a much better dessert than the "Kozy Shack Tapioca Pudding" in its sealed plastic container that came with my so-called meal.
• Helen flew out from Edmonton, also bearing gifts, including a little red piggy bank named William. She says he's William the Wish Pig, and she wants people to put coins in him, one cent for a wish, and later when I shake it I'll know lots of people are wishin' and hopin' for me.
• My sister is here for three days, and I appreciate her taking time away from her kids (and her partner for helping out) so we can have some time together. And Mom is getting some respite at home.
• Other friends have brought other gifts, so that my window ledge is so crowded I can barely see the gorgeous sunrises on the lake. We've had unusually clear weather lately. I wonder if there will be a snowfall at all in January?
  

A walk in my socks

I don't know how to describe how I'm feeling these days. Uncomfortable, rather than in tons of pain. Can't get a position to sit or lie in that doesn't make me antsy. So much pressure in my rib cage that I begin to feel as though I can't breathe and have to take an Atavan. Back aches a lot, and my spine feels like rubber. Still choking on food and talking in a weak whisper, which really does add to my overall feeling of powerlessness.

The good news is that some infinitesimal movements are returning to my left leg; don't know what to expect there, but the physiotherapist keeps standing me up and today I took a few meager steps with a walker. The left leg really doesn't do much except feel numb. Exhausting. Now the wait is on to get me a bed in a rehab hospital -- could be days or weeks before that happens -- which will be either Bridgepoint Health or Providence.

When I'm going somewhere on a stretcher in an elevator, I find myself mesmerized by folks who get in on their own two legs, coats and boots on, Subway sandwich in a bag or a Tim's coffee in their hands, ready to start or end their day. They're just going to walk out of here, I think to myself, and go somewhere all by themselves. Outside in the air, of their own volition. It seems the most exotic concept, and the envy I feel is hard to stuff down.

I think part of my restlessness comes from tamping down a reserve of coiled energy that simply wants to get me up and onto my feet and the hell out of this joint. It's awful.

Pollyanna moments:
• Lindor chocolates
• Cyclamen, red tulips, baby daffs, irises and white lilies
• Mom's lentil soup.

Strange anniversary

It was a year ago today that I found out my cancer had returned, and I stopped going to work the following day. What a year. Nuff said.

A couple of days ago, a speech pathologist visited me to talk about my paralyzed vocal cord, and advised me that there are strategies for swallowing. Expecting something complicated, I asked what they were. "Turn your head down and to the right when you swallow," she replied. And it works. Not ideally, but it works, enough that I don't choke nearly so often. The food that might collect in the little pocket created by the damaged vocal cord gets pushed aside by the neck muscle and goes down better.

I have been suffering with this for three months, and have seen the ear, nose and throat doctor twice, and she couldn't have told me this?

Today the radiation doc was in, and asked me if I had been wondering about my prognosis. There is no guarantee that because the cancer is spreading in the spine so much that it will necessarily start spreading to the vital organs right away; all she would say was, "Could be three months, six months, 12 months, 18 months, two years...."

So I am not planning to save a lot more pennies.

I am oddly not afraid to die now. Probably when it gets closer, I will be. But right now I am tired of suffering, and there is much more to come.

Still, Pollyanna moments abound:

• Lovely notes and comments from blog readers I hardly know but who were kind enough to stop and write.
• Daryl's funny stories about all the characters on my beloved Highfield Road.
• So much chocolate has been coming into my hospital room!
• My mother is being a calm, towering brick, as are my siblings.

Life or limb?

I couldn't write much more than a two-line email yesterday, if that, because the pressure on my chest was so great I could barely sit up. It's now four a.m. Thursday morning and I'm feeling a little better, so will try to catch up.

My radiation doctor refers to cancer threatening both life and limb, and she allowed as how my case was "frustrating" because it appears my life is not being threatened, only my limb. In other words, I'm not ready for end-of-life care but I am probably going to be quite disabled. Which means very different kinds of preparations.

I reminded Dr. Noguff that she had told me Friday night that the radiation treatments were very likely to work. She explained that she meant they're very likely to arrest the tumour growth, but not necessarily to make my leg any better than it is now. She mentioned a fifty-fifty chance of ever walking again. You can imagine Mom and I were taken aback. Apparently miracles do happen, but they don't call them miracles for nothing.

So...my last radiation treatment will take place next Tuesday the 19th, and then I will be spending a good long time in a rehabilitation hospital (barring the aforesaid miracle). I am praying it will be Bridgepoint Health, since it's not far from my house and therefore easier for my mom to get to me.

I am stunned, of course, only partly absorbing the news. The Pollyanna side of me always surfaces first, the part that is always bored and looking for some new venture/project/happening in the future. "I'll get a new apartment! I'll start a new phase of life! It will be an adventure!"

The reality will be less than stellar. One day at a time. I am heartened this morning that I'm able to sit up and type with only a little discomfort, thanks to Atavan and Nortriptyline. That's a small step.

The woman with whom I am sharing my semi-private room snores. Not like a freight train; I've heard louder. And I would prefer the rhythmic cadences of a freight train. No, she snores operatically (no offense to opera fans, but I don't find the genre very musical), in great narrative arcs. Little whinnies of helpless despair, moving to short bursts of peaceful contemplation, building up to a wide variety of loud exclamations, existential questions, flights of fancy, and culminating in cacophonous roars of insight and bombast. A very expressive instrument, but it's impossible not to concentrate on it and therefore sleep is dead for me.

However, the lady told me that she had not had a good night's rest in six weeks, and when they gave her something that allows her to sleep, she was so excited that she'd slept the night through, I couldn't help but be happy for her. I know too well what it's like not to be able to rest because of pain, and my pain is much lessened now. So I will listen to her snoring and smile and thank heavens for small blessings.

Dispatch from PMH, Day 5

This new phase of my life has really thrown me, although I believe it must still be easier to acclimate to deteroriating health than to suddenly have a car accident and wake up a paraplegic.

Despite four radiation treatments, the numbness has spread up to my waist on the left side. I can barely feel my left buttock. The technicians tell me it could get worse before it gets better. And I must remember that when I had the upper-spine radiation, the acute pain didn't go away until about two weeks after the treatments had ended (as predicted). But it's easy to believe that I've lost my leg for good, and the past few days have been terrifying.

To have my treatments, I have to be moved from bed to stretcher by three or four people like a sack of potatoes. When the physiotherapists came yesterday, they had me sit up for a while in a wheelchair, but a couple of experiences of trying to shift myself using a walker were frightening to me. My better leg feels like it may be going in the same bad direction, but it could just be because I've been lying in bed too much.

My dear mother comes every day and tidies constantly, reaching for things I need, fetching ice chips, preparing food (the hospital food is terrible). I'm cast back to 1966, when at age 9 I was completely immobilized in a body cast in our dining room in northern Ontario for three or four months, and poor Mom had to care for me along with three boisterous youngsters. Bed pans, food trays, sponge baths, the whole nine yards.

In terms of life quality, my paralyzed vocal cord is making me just as miserable as the legs. Last night I passed a sleepless hour reading a Toronto Life that Angie brought me yesterday, and I found myself salivating over the restaurant reviews -- but that was because I was lying down. The minute I sit up, I feel so full I can barely put a thing in my mouth, and even if I do, it's so hard to swallow, I'd rather not eat at all. Meanwhile, my poor compressed abdomen is full of gas. This is partly because medications are making me constipated. But it's also because the paralyzed vocal cord causes me to swallow a lot of air and saliva. Ingesting the massive amounts of pills that I must take every day is not fun.

I will spare you the details of the adult diapers.

I've been seen by a palliative care team, and I'm not sure what that means. Apparently they specialize in symptom management and planning for cancer patients, so I don't think their presence means I am imminently dying. But I may be on the slippery slope to serious disability, I guess.

Pollyanna moments:

• Princess Margaret Hospital just got wireless internet for patients six months ago -- it's a lifesaver for me.
• Mom brought me a stuffed puppy. I have named it after one of my nurses: Espiranza (hope).
• I've had this semi-private room to myself since I got here, but I don't think that will last long.
  

Dispatch from PMH, Day 2

To continue my tale of yesterday: the private ambulance worked out pretty well. For $150, a firefighter and a paramedic, no doubt moonlighting, strapped me into a canvas chair and carried me down my steps while I gritted my teeth and kept my eyes closed. I get really nervous when I don't have both feet on the ground (trust issues, anyone?).

Dr. Noguff examined me very thoroughly and was alarmed at the jerking spasms that were now happening in my left leg every five seconds. My leg was numb up to mid-calf. She said the spasms indicated mid-spine problems rather than lower. She pulled all the strings she could and got me in for an MRI by 1 p.m. As usual, it was like being in a coffin while being forced to listen to outtakes from a recording session by Kraftwerk or Holy Fuck.

Somehow the doc managed to track down Dr. Second, the orthopod, even though he was away from his office, and he promised to look at the films as soon as he got back to his hospital and to consult a neurosurgeon at the same time. Time was tight because it was late afternoon on a Friday. Luckily this hospital and his hospital are part of the University Health Network, so they have access to all of the same online records. Oh, for system-wide e-records. Will it ever happen in Ontario?

Around 4 p.m. Dr. Noguff let me know that there is a cancerous lesion in my mid-spine that is probably the culprit. It's very serious and without treatment will lead to paralysis, not to mention colostomy and urine bags. She posited that the surgeons would probably recommend removing it surgically and that it might even happen that night or the next day, followed by weeks in a rehabilitation hospital.

My carefully cheerful facade kind of crumbled at that point, and I forestalled collapse by phoning all my family members and asking them to come to the hospital. I had always felt that before spinal surgery, with all its attendant risks, I would give my siblings some directions about things in my house, my will, etc., things I should have made clear to them long ago.

Half an hour later, Dr. Noguff had heard back from Dr. Second and the neurosurgeon, and informed me that they had ruled out surgery. Either the tumour is too entwined with my spinal cord, or my bones are too soft or both -- I didn't get a clear picture because at this point Dr. Noguff was rushing around arranging for a hospital bed for me, and for radiation treatment, which she wanted to start right away. More frantic phone calls to family to calm them down. By 8 p.m. I had had my first of 10 radiation treatments.

Meanwhile, by lunchtime the numbness in my leg had spread to the knee, and by 6 p.m. it was halfway up my thigh. When I look down at my foot, I get the impression it's someone else's. My leg won't move of its own volition no matter how hard I will it to. I have to lift it with my hands, and if I don't prop it up, it just falls over like a limp noodle.

I'm reduced completely to bed rest; can't even go to the bathroom without a bedpan, and I have a catheter.

This is all becoming a bit too real to me now. People are starting to act like I'm really sick, and I guess I am. I'm terrified that I am about to lose my independence for good. Will the radiation work? Dr. Noguff says there's a good chance it will. But will it simply be a temporary measure? Where else will the cancer show up next, and when? Impossible to know. And, above all, why didn't somebody do an MRI a week ago?

The radiation treatment causes nausea because it's around my abdomen; I'm getting powerful anti-nausea drugs, but I still vomited today, what looked like bile. My digestive system is really screwed up.

It must be awful to read about a person's slow disintegration. I still have hope that some better days are ahead. I have to.

But I do spend time reminiscing about some of the nice days I had this year in between treatments: my trips to Alberta, and Stratford, and Massey. August, when I had a radiation treatment every day but felt strong and well and was able to move about the city alone, which is now my measure of "life is good."

I've had plenty of visitors today, including my whole family except poor Dad, who doesn't even know I'm in the hospital. This past week his youngest sister died from complications of dementia at about age 72; she was a firecracker of a woman whom I took after both physically and in personality. I'm happy she is no longer suffering. Rest in peace, Aunt Faye.

Last, but not least, I want to clarify what I wrote yesterday about Diane trying to get me up the stairs in my house on Thursday: it was entirely my idea, not hers, and not a very good one. I thought we could do it if I was sitting on my bum, but it didn't work, and luckily she is strong as an ox and could catch me.

Pollyanna moments:

• My nephews and niece came to visit me in hospital today, even though I know it's a little scary for them to see me like this.
• The nurses so far have been exemplary. Last night when my lovely Somali nurse checked on me I got a bit weepy, and she immediately sat down and took the time to hold my hand and talk with me about everything under the sun: families, children, religion, culture, the pros and cons of being married and being single, professional distance. She is an angel in hijab.

More tales from Cancerworld

Greetings from my moderately appointed semi-private room in lovely Princess Margaret Hospital, which promises to be my home for quite a few days to come.

I was quite frustrated after seeing Dr. Lee on Monday. On Wednesday my brother got through to the orthopedic surgeon's secretary, who had not yet heard my Monday and Tuesday phone messages (she was working her way through the holiday overload). She said Dr. Second was booking patients in March. I told her it was an emergency, and she said I should go to the ER. I told her I had done that a week before, without any resolution, and that Dr. Lee wanted me to see him. Then I needed a referral letter from her, she insisted. Finally, she agreed to accept a copy of my last CT report and a letter, which had to be faxed, not scanned and emailed, and she would see what she could do. So my brother, bless his heart, went out and faxed same, picking up a commode for me on the way home, which he installed in my front room, and not a moment too soon because I could not make the stairs any longer.

I called Dr. Lee's office and left a message asking her to help me get something happening. Thursday morning at 7:30 a.m. -- an hour after I finally got to sleep (backache keeps me up all night, and for the first time my left leg wasn't just jumping, it was contracting in a weird, uncontrollable spasm about every 15 seconds) -- her secretary called to say they had sent copies of my scans over to both Dr. Second, who's at another hospital, and my radiation oncologist, whom I'll call Dr. Noguff, who is at a third hospital.

Somewhere in there Dr. Noguff called me, to my surprise, and said she'd heard from Dr. Lee and neither of them thought this was a cancerous lesion pressing on my spinal cord, but she agreed that I needed to see the orthopod as soon as possible. I told her I wasn't having much luck, and did a little weeping about having to be my own family doctor, which she seemed to take up as a challenge. She said she'd track him down. "Good luck," I told her.

Meanwhile, I called Dr. Second's office to make sure they'd received the fax; the upshot was they called back soon after and agreed he'd see me on Monday morning.

I was supposed to go to an appointment with a counsellor at Wellspring cancer centre at 3 p.m., and Liz volunteered to drive me. Up until that point, I had been able, with help, to negotiate the two sets of steps in front of my house. This time, it was a bit of a comedy. Poor Liz tried to scoot around me as I held on to the door frame and the railings, so she could help me down, and suddenly my leg gave out and I landed on my bum with a thud. Liz gamely turned me around and tried to lift me up so I could make it back inside the house. But my leg gave out again and I fell forward and banged my shin and knee (have some lovely bruises today, though it didn't hurt much).

A stranger passing by on the street volunteered to help, and he and Liz managed to carry me bodily back into the house. "You're obviously not leaving here except on a stretcher," said Liz, and I had to agree.

When I called to cancel with my counsellor, she told me to get to emergency as fast as I could go. All I could think to do was call 911, but when the paramedics arrived, they were only allowed to take me to Mount Sinai, which would have meant starting from scratch since my doctors are all at other hospitals. They explained about private ambulances, which I knew little about but which are cheaper though less well-staffed and will take you anywhere you want to go. So I decided to postpone going to the ER.

Finally, Dr. Noguff called at 6:30 p.m. and told me she'd exchanged emails with the elusive Dr. Second and he thought I should have an MRI. He has been saying for the past year that he could get useful information from an MRI, while Dr. Lee and others have insisted an MRI was impossible because of the metal in my back. (One nurse practitioner said that it would kill me!). I told Dr. Lee about Dr. Second's opinion many times, but no MRI has ever been done -- and no CT scan of my mid-back has been done in nearly a year.

Dr. Noguff asked me to come in the next morning (this morning) at 10 a.m. and she would look at my scans (which Liz kindly picked up for me at the other hospital) and then try to get me an MRI. She said I could go to emerg if I wanted to, but I probably wouldn't get an MRI any faster in the middle of the night. I arranged a private ambulance. My mother arrived from Kitchener in the middle of all of this.

I was so thrilled that, finally, one of my oncologists was getting serious about conferring with the orthopedic surgeon. Everything has seemed so fragmented up till now. At last things seemed to be moving along. Meanwhile, the spasms and lack of sensation in my left foot were moving up my calf, and when Diane tried to take me up the stairs in hope of having a bath, my leg just kept scooting out from under me like it was made of straw, and I almost killed both of us.

That's a long enough post for now. Will tell today's tale soon.

From bad to worse

This is getting a little scary. I'm just dragging my left foot -- which feels like a block of ice -- behind me; I can't lift it up at all. My knees lock unexpectedly, and then give way without warning. I can no longer risk climbing the stairs to the second floor of my house. There's a bathroom in the basement, and those stairs are a bit easier, but still dangerous. I'm trying to confine myself to the living room and kitchen, using the walker.

Yesterday I saw my oncologist. She fetched the report from the CT scan of my lower back that was taken the other night when I went to the ER, and gave me a copy. It says clearly that there are no new lesions. Then why did the ER doctor tell me there was a new lesion? No explanation. Dr. Lee was very concerned about my symptoms, but could offer no solutions and said I have to see the orthopedic surgeon as soon as possible. I left him messages yesterday and today, laying it on as thick as I could ("I live alone! I can't use my stairs! I can't go to the bathroom!"), and nobody has responded.

Dr. Lee said they should have scanned my whole spine on New Year's Eve rather than just the lower part, and now wants to do another scan! Since each one is equal to 400 X-rays, apparently, I am not thrilled at how many of them I've been having lately.

Pollyanna moment:

• The amaryllis that Alex brought me bloomed today, lovely and peachy.
• Friends have been dropping by to wash dishes, help with laundry and fetch things from upstairs. What would I do without them? Should I be in hospital?
  

How I spent New Year's Eve

I haven't had the energy to write for days, and I've been loath to just keep whining about how crappy I've been feeling. True to form, my body has been throwing one malady at me after another. The sciatic pain mostly disappeared a few days after the nerve-root injection, but my right leg continued to feel weak, numb and twitchy, making it difficult to walk and especially to negotiate stairs. Then I developed a ferocious lower backache that prevented me from lying down for more than a few minutes. I spent a week at my mother's apartment in Kitchener over Christmas, which at least has no stairs, but all I did -- besides a jigsaw puzzle my nephews gave me -- was pace the floor and take hot baths, day and night.

A few days ago, I began to notice that my other leg was becoming numb and twitchy. I took the bus back to Toronto, which was excruciating; both legs were so jumpy it was all I could do to resist getting up and pacing the narrow aisle. I had failed to take my calcium-magnesium pills to Kitchener with me, and since resuming them the twitching has lessened somewhat.

But the lack of control over my legs is getting worse and worse. I exchanged some emails with my oncologist on New Year's Eve day, and she told me to go to emergency right away. Here's what the American Cancer Society website told me:

When cancer threatens to paralyze, it's an emergency.
Sometimes the cancer will spread to a bone in the spine. The cancer can grow enough to press against and squeeze the spinal cord. This can show up in different ways:

• back pain (pain may go down one or both legs)
• numbness of the legs or belly
• leg weakness or trouble moving the legs
• unexpectedly passing urine or stool (incontinence) or problems urinating

If you notice symptoms like this, call your doctor right away or go to the emergency room. If not treated right away, this can lead to life-long paralysis. If the cancer is just starting to press on the spinal cord, it may be treated with radiation along with drugs. Sometimes surgery is needed to relieve the pressure on the spinal cord. This can prevent paralysis as well as help relieve the pain.

I have all of these symptoms; I'm not incontinent, but I have a hard time peeing and I'm very constipated despite reducing considerably the amount of codeine I was taking. My ribcage and abdomen are very numb.

So my brother and his wife were kind enough to take me to the ER at 3:30 on New Year's Eve. They stayed a couple of hours, and then Hugh joined me and we had a jolly visit in an examining room until 10 p.m. (I'd post some silly photos of us if I could figure out how to get them off my cellphone.) Luckily I was in and out before the real New Year's Eve craziness could begin.

I had a CT scan taken of my lower back, and the doctor said there is a new lesion in my left lower back (iliac?), which could be the cause of the backache, but nothing that looks like it is pressing on my spinal cord. She concluded it has to be a sciatic nerve problem.

Maybe the nerve-root injection made things worse? Somehow I doubt it.

Hugh and I walked around downtown trying to find a place to eat, amazed that almost no restaurants are open on Yonge Street around Queen and Dundas after 10 p.m. I walk like Frankenstein now, and very slowly, but with Hugh's help I managed to make it to Fran's on College. But of course I had a choking fit when I tried to eat a french fry, so I hurried home before midnight. My choking fits are embarrassing, and are just one more reason I don't want to go out in public. Trying to make myself understood with this hoarse voice is also tiring.

I had weaned myself off codeine to the point where I was just taking a little at night, along with amitriptyline to help me sleep. Yesterday I gave in and took a bunch of long-acting codeine in the late afternoon just to see what would happen, and I had several hours of being able to lie on the couch and just snooze, read and relax, without having to jump up every few minutes to relieve the pain. Sigh. It was heavenly. I can't remember the last time I could just rest comfortably in any position. I really don't want to take all these drugs, but I suppose I should be thankful they exist. I also had a better sleep last night than I have had in many days, with a happy dream about my maternal grandmother, in which she offered me some herbal remedies, and the two of us lay down on a grassy hill and watched the clouds. Not something that would ever have happened in real life; I wonder what it means.

So...I see my oncologist Monday morning, but I think the more important thing is to try to get in to see the orthopedic surgeon. I am coping by walking very, very carefully and holding on to things at all times, but if this continues to worsen, I'm in trouble.

Pollyanna moments:

• I managed to choke down a few tiny pieces of a very nice rare prime rib that my sister's partner made for Christmas dinner -- rotisseried on the barbecue on the front porch.
• We had Dad home for Christmas.
• Tom and Robert's chocolate fudge!