Back pain continues

This week started out with a visit to the plastic surgeon's office for another fill to my expanders. The most pain experienced in this process is from the freezing needle the nurse sticks in my pectoral muscle before. When I talk to other women, they say they feel no pain and don't even have a numbing needle. I have no idea how that works but I definitely feel pain. Luckily though, by the time they stick in the really large needle, my eyes are shut and all I feel is a bit of pressure. This week, I started to feel pressure on my chest as the second expander was filled and a feeling like heaviness but nothing too major. Chest felt tight for the rest of the day but nothing really bad at all.

Unfortunately, my other news is that I have bad news about the epidural shot. Although I felt all hopped up on steroids over the weekend, my sciatic nerve didn't let up painwise and a week later, I would have to say that there has been no success. I am experiencing the exact same pain as usual. I have heard that these shots come in threes so we'll see what the Doc says on Wednesday. I am losing confidence that I can be fixed and leaning towards getting back on my bike to see if that is painful. If not, could it possibly be worse than sitting? Which I do when I am off the bike?

Speaking of exercise, I swam last week again and it worked out well. I was able to swim farther (10 lengths) and did lots of lengths of kicking. I had very little recovery pain. Today, I went for the gusto and swam more than I could count. If I was to guess, maybe I did 20 lengths split into two sets (I always lose track after 8 and always hated swimming long distance races in high school because I could never keep track of the lengths done...) and spent the rest of a half hour kicking. I am still avoiding strong pulling as I don't want to aggrivate my pectoral muscles but I did feel good and felt like I could have swum longer... I just don't want to push it.

Met with my Oncologist for my usual 3-5 minute visit... honestly, I am so tempted to time the visits with him. I must do it next time just so I can report back and you will know that I am NOT exaggerating! He told me that although I missed last week's chemo, it would just be tacked onto the end. He acted like nothing was unusual and we would just continue on. Gosh, I hope he is reading my charts and knows what's going on. He left the room so fast that I walked into his office after and asked another question. I was wondering if the chemo is impeding my ability to heal from the herniated disc and he said no, that it just can take a really long time... sigh.

Up next week - orthopeodic surgeon visit and chemo. I really hope that they find my veins ok on Thursday because right now I have 4 bruises (from the three attempts last week and three this week (one was successful each time and didn't bruise)) to put in my IV. I feel bad for the nurses. Wish I could do something to help... but all I can do is stay hydrated.

That's it for now. Back to folding our humongous pile of laundry.
Go Canada!
Mo