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!