Back after very long absence
Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2011 8:01 am
Hi everyone,
Well.. I have been away for several months. I think my past post was in August. I have missed the support here and also for a time I was quite involved and I want to let you know why I was gone. In August, my husband was having some slight heartburn. He never had it before. Well, he went to the doctor to get it checked out, and the diagnosis, unfortunately, was EC- as in esophageal cancer. As you may or may not know, it is a very deadly and aggressive cancer. My husband was fortunate in that his was caught early. He did not have any cancer in the lymph nodes or mets, so he was a candidate for surgery. He went through chemo/radiation and then 6 weeks later in November, a major surgery. He had a large portion of his esophagus taken out, and now part of his stomach acts as a tube to replace the esophagus, and then less stomach is now there to be a stomach. So, needless to say, it was a horrible time for us- very scary and stressful. The good news is that the path report after surgery was clean- as in no evidence of cancer. So, now he is healing and learning to live with these new limitations. During this whole time I had just started tapering off long acting narcotics. Well, that had to stop due to all that was going on. So, I stayed on the bupenorphine and just tried to hold it together while he was going through this terrible treatment program. It was really tough on me given my physical state as well and my meds weren't balanced well at the time. Somehow I managed and now we are trying to get our life back on track. INteresting enough, I did not have any pain flares during this time. My meds did a good job, I just had w/d symptoms that I had to deal with. Well, now I am back tapering and finally that is going real well. And, I'm not yet having breakthrough pain though that might happen at the lower doses. Well, I just wanted to let you know what happened, and I missed the people here and wish you all a great holiday season.
Cora
Well.. I have been away for several months. I think my past post was in August. I have missed the support here and also for a time I was quite involved and I want to let you know why I was gone. In August, my husband was having some slight heartburn. He never had it before. Well, he went to the doctor to get it checked out, and the diagnosis, unfortunately, was EC- as in esophageal cancer. As you may or may not know, it is a very deadly and aggressive cancer. My husband was fortunate in that his was caught early. He did not have any cancer in the lymph nodes or mets, so he was a candidate for surgery. He went through chemo/radiation and then 6 weeks later in November, a major surgery. He had a large portion of his esophagus taken out, and now part of his stomach acts as a tube to replace the esophagus, and then less stomach is now there to be a stomach. So, needless to say, it was a horrible time for us- very scary and stressful. The good news is that the path report after surgery was clean- as in no evidence of cancer. So, now he is healing and learning to live with these new limitations. During this whole time I had just started tapering off long acting narcotics. Well, that had to stop due to all that was going on. So, I stayed on the bupenorphine and just tried to hold it together while he was going through this terrible treatment program. It was really tough on me given my physical state as well and my meds weren't balanced well at the time. Somehow I managed and now we are trying to get our life back on track. INteresting enough, I did not have any pain flares during this time. My meds did a good job, I just had w/d symptoms that I had to deal with. Well, now I am back tapering and finally that is going real well. And, I'm not yet having breakthrough pain though that might happen at the lower doses. Well, I just wanted to let you know what happened, and I missed the people here and wish you all a great holiday season.
Cora
