Pictures!

I've been home for almost a month now and I'm feeling much better than I did when I left the hospital. I'm slowly getting my strength back. I've stopped using a walker to get around, I just walk regularly now, albeit pretty slowly. Here's a picture of me with my walker from a while ago, note my "skinny chicken legs":

Also, for the past week I've been able to make it up the stairs to get to my room, so I've been sleeping in my own room again (!!!). That's been pretty nice, and it's good exercise to have to go up or down the stairs.

In order to leave the hospital when I did I had to be able to continue taking a certain antibiotic that was only available as an IV fluid. Luckily there are ways to take IV fluids at home. This particular antibiotic came in a pressurized ball so all I had to do was attach it to my PICC line, unclamp it, and wait about an hour and a half for it to finish pushing the fluid into me.

Before

After

It was a very strange thing, but I'm glad it exists, otherwise I would've had to stay in the hospital for a few more days to keep getting the antibiotic.

The only treatment I have left at this point is radiation, which will start on Wednesday. The radiation is outpatient at the Northwestern hospital downtown, which is nice because I don't have to stay in the hospital, but annoying because I have to go downtown everyday for a process that only takes about an hour. I'm going to have radiation every weekday for 2-3 weeks and then I'll be done with treatment and just have to focus on recovery. The radiation should be nowhere near as bad as the chemo, the biggest side effect is that it'll wipe me out and I'll be tired for a few weeks after I'm finished with the actual treatment. I'll keep the blog updated as I go through the actual treatment, and hopefully I can get some pictures of all the equipment.