Today we went to "chemo school" - the hour long patient education class, it was actually very helpful and informative, but a bit overwhelming too. Thanks goodness for the notebook you all had suggested. I would now be so lost without it.

I can't sleep tonight for worrying about how the first treatment day will go tomorrow. We thought the radiation would actually start today (Thursday), but when he went back there they ended up doing some more alignment stuff with the mask and the RO said he wanted the first treatment to follow chemo. So tomorrow (Friday) we see the MO, then chemo, then radiation then the RO.

Earlier this week Dan had the surgery to put the gold weight in his eyelid and to lift the sagging lower lid to enable his eye to "work again" (closing, tearing, possible cornea damage, etc.) - these were all side effects to the facial nerve trauma from the initial tumor removal surgery. He's recovering nicely just still a little tired (4th surgery in 30 days) and his eye looks like Mike Tyson punched him!!

My only new "fear" is Dan's veins. In the hospital Tuesday for the eye surgery they stuck him 5 times!!!! I didn't know this as they didn't put the IV in until they took him away from me and bless his heart he didn't know to ask for someone else. Then today at the Cacner Center when we went to do our weekly labs the nurse said his veins were deep... Not heard that phrase before. She spent quite some time looking around on his arms and hands until she found something she liked and she was able to get it on one stick, but the blood flow was REALLY slow. I'm interested to see how our chemo nurse does tomorrow. When we were dealing with my mother's breast cancer in the late '90's she had a port, but she had systemic scleroderma, which made her a TOUGH stick before the cancer and the doc knew she would never make it without a port. I didn't think Dan would have any trouble.

Another side note - please say a prayer for me, I have always had back (lower disc) problems and since we had our little boy they've gotten steadily worse. Well one of the bulging discs we've been watching has ruptured. I had a new MRI last week. I know that something had to have changed because a recent round of intense physical therapy, chiro and accupuncture did nothing for the pain. Our next step is an epidural pain injection - I will have that on Wednesday. I just don't want to have to deal with this right now because I want to be strong at operating at full strenght for Dan!!!!

Prayers and hugs to all!

Michelle