BAUGHAN-DNA-L Archives

Archiver > BAUGHAN-DNA > 2009-07 > 1248650028


From: "Gary Stone" <>
Subject: Re: [BAUGHAN-DNA] Health Update
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 18:13:48 -0500
In-Reply-To: <000401ca0cc5$d6f8a330$84e9e990$@net>


Hang in there Ed...We are all pulling and praying for your speedy recovery!

gstone


Gary Stone and Buster The Wonder Dog!
www.rationcrate.com


-----Original Message-----
From:
[mailto:] On Behalf Of Edward S Robson
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2009 8:19 PM
To: ;
Subject: [BAUGHAN-DNA] Health Update

Dear friends and family,



Well 23 radiation episodes down and 5 to go. I really hate to say anything
for fear of jinxing myself, but so far, this has not been an onerous
process. I am starting to experience some of the expected symptoms, but
they have not been severe. Very, very, very tolerable. My radiation
oncologist warned me against undue optimism by telling me that it is not
unusual for the worst symptoms to occur in the week after radiation is
completed. So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and still hoping for the
best. All of my blood counts have been very good and there has be no reason
so far to put off any of the radiation treatments.



I've made an appointment with the surgeon to start planning the next phase
of my treatment plan.



I've had one very unpleasant complication that has made this whole process
less than optimal. Right around the end of June or the beginning of July, I
started experiencing very uncomfortable pain in my neck and shoulder. I saw
an orthopaedic doctor and, based on x-rays, he said that I have arthritis in
my cervical spine and a bone spur which caused a pinched nerve. This
resulted in swelling in my rotator cuff. I have been very uncomfortable for
almost a month now. I think, perhaps, I have started turning the corner on
this neck and shoulder pain but I'm still pretty uncomfortable. I am
working with a physical therapist 3 times a week and he was starting to get
pretty frustrated that I was not making better progress with the pain. I
sped up my follow up appointment with the orthopaedist because, quite
frankly, I wanted to know if he was thinking of a need for surgery on my
neck and how we would coordinate that with my cancer surgery. I really and
truly don't want to be dealing with neck and shoulder pain like this at the
same time that I am recovering from intestinal surgery. The orthopaedist
says that he is not thinking I will need surgery, so hopefully he is right.




I guess that the silver lining to this whole unpleasant episode is that the
pain medication that I have been taking for the neck and shoulder pain has
apparently limited the unpleasant symptoms from the radiation and chemo. I
can not honestly say that it is a trade-off that I would have gladly made
had I been given the option in the beginning. But we take our blessings as
they come.



So, the next couple of weeks are going to be pivotal and I am hoping that
they go as easily as the previous 4 weeks have.



Thank you for all of the positive thoughts and prayers. I'm sure that these
have had a role in the ease of my treatments.



God bless you all and I will be following up shortly with an brief update on
our DNA testing.



Ed Robson


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