A Holiday season of recovery

I figured today as I was at work talking with one our technicians that I was probably due for a blog update because it had been awhile since my last post. So here it is!

The holidays were very eventful for me. We had my parents, sister and her husband, my in-laws and my husbands younger brother and his two kids over for Christmas. I was worried at first because I wasn't sure how I was going to handle all the people. When I'm in an overstimulating environment for too long, I start to have burning on the left side of my body and usually can only last for 10-20 minutes before I have to leave to find a quieter environment so things can settle down. Amazingly I was able to spend a good majority of my time with the family and did not have to go lay down in the bedroom to get away from all the commotion. My sweet, sweet husband went to the store and purchased non-alcoholic champagne for me to toast with on New Years. I am still not allowed to have any alcohol because it lowers the seizure threshold and with how frequently I have been having seizure activity, it is very ill advised for me to chance it. So I am abstaining from the drinking for a while (although I look forward to my first glass of wine once I get clearance from the physician's). They wouldn't even let me have a glass of wine on my 30th birthday (bummer, I know).

I am now 3 weeks and 3 days out of radiation and I can tell I'm starting to improve (more so now than the past few weeks). It is still a very slow process, but I can now get through the day with very little issue in terms of seizure activity and I have been able to slowly increase my hours at work. Today I worked 2 hours in the morning and another 2 in the afternoon for a total of a little over 4 hours. This is good timing because as of today my FMLA is completely depleted and I had to return to part time status or risk losing my benefits. Our goal is to work up to where I can work 4 hours straight, but I am not quite there.

The best news of all is that I resumed patient treatment today and treated my first patient in over 3 months. It was such a good feeling even though I was pretty tired after. I will have a couple more patients on my schedule this week, but they are very easy and so it will allow me to better pace myself so I don't wear out too quick. The other good news is that my dilantin dosage has been reduced from 300 mg a day to 200 mg a day. I notice a difference because I was starting to have some issues and felt like it might be time for a medication adjustment. I talked to Dr. Baronia on Saturday (because that is the awesome neurosurgeon that he is) and he instructed me to drop down 100mg on the dilantin and see how I did. I notice a difference. I don't have as hard of time with it as I was starting to while I was taking it three times a day. I suspect we will remain on this dose for a period and then continue to work to wean me off the dilantin completely. I have been successful at weaning off several medications so I am very thankful for that because I am not a fan of taking meds. Currently we are in the process of weaning me off the lorazepam (which I was only taking at night to help me sleep) so there is more positive news there as well.

I go back on January 6th for a repeat MRI scan to see how things have been doing over the past month and then I will follow up with the oncology team a week later to determine what the next course of treatment will be for me. I am feeling better every day and today was an emotional turning point for me because I was worried about whether or not I would be able to return to work. Today was the first day I felt like I will be able to return to work full time at some point. Yay!