Battle of the Bulge (Pun Intended)

Nineteen radiation treatments down, eleven more to go!   I have hit a point now where I actually enjoy going to my radiation treatments because I know that the end of them is in the near future.  The more I go to, the fewer are left!  

I gave myself a challenge this week.  Every Wednesday when I receive a radiation treatment, I get to have a meeting with Dr. Stille, my radiologist.  In my meeting with him, the whole point of it is that I can come in with any questions I may have about my treatment and hopefully get them answered.  Well, this Wednesday I went in with a mission . . . to convince him to reduce/get rid of my steroid prescription so I can regain my ballooning face.  (My face has been ballooning enough that the people who are giving me my radiation treatment each day were having a hard time getting my radiation mask to fit, even with my lack of hair.  Plus, I really would love to have my jawline and cheekbones back)  Now here is the tricky thing about this mission; my steroid prescription was not given to me by Dr. Stille (my radiologist), it was given to me by Dr. O (my brain surgeon).  I will not be seeing Dr. O again for another two and a half weeks, and he kept me on my steroid prescription because of the fact I was being given radiation treatments by Dr. Stille.  Whew!

I learned yesterday that there a big advantages to being a biologist and teaching middle-schoolers for a living.  I was successful in my debate with Dr. Stille!  I truly don't think he has ever had a patient question any decisions he has been in charge of, because he seemed a bit in shock when I asked him if the amount of steroid I was receiving was really being beneficial to my radiation treatment.  I am happy to say, that after some negotiations, that Dr. Stille reduced my steroid prescription by half, and after two weeks at their now reduced level, I can begin taking my steroids every other day.  After one week of every other day, I can be done with them!  Yeah!  Thank you to all of my biology and education professors that I have ever had; you are awesome.

Yesterday I was also lucky enough for UPS to deliver my next shipment of chemo drugs.  I have a feeling that the company that makes my Temodar is making more money off of it.  Now each pill comes individually wrapped, but still stuffed inside a prescription container:

The small container is what 15 days worth of prescription was before, the three larger
containers are what 15 days looks like now.

 In addition to the increased container size, they also now include much more information.  Before I had a twelve page packet listing off all side-effects, drug interactions, etc.  Now, I get a twelve page packet, and two sets of additional information on the chemo drugs.  One page (the page without drugs on it in the picture)  describes how the drug works, dosage calculations, the pill dosage color code, sources or research, and a least one graph for each piece of information.  The other page (the page with the drugs on it) is a repeat in much smaller print of my twelve page side-effects packet.  Anyway, to make a long story short, I now will be housing scissors in my Ziplock bag-o-drugs so I can cut open three little packets of individually wrapped pills a day.  These chemo drugs and I are going to have a close knit relationship, but I avidly look forward to the relationship collapse in six months.