As Time Goes By

Wifey's turn to update the blog, Jan Arne has been a bit under the weather the past few days so he asked me to fill in for him.

Jan Arne's final radiation treatment was on Friday. The treatment itself has been easy, except for the odd appointment times, mostly at 8 in the evening or 8 in the morning. My dad has been driving him, a couple of times Jan Arne has been well enough to drive himself. The swelling on the legs has been coming and going, mostly gone for today, but it seems to be traveling, and there may be some fluid building up in his stomach as well. Other than that there has been some other uncomfortable side effects, a bit upset stomach, some fever, and quite bad fatigue so he has been sleeping a lot. At this point though it is a bit difficult to know which symptoms are caused by the cancer and which by the treatment. Mostly the radiation is given to ease the back pains but also the swelling hopefully. The doctor said the radiation might initially increase the swelling in the lymph nodes and thus make the swelling in the legs a bit worse but then it might get better. Let's hope this is the case.

The weather here in Tampere area was getting nice and springy last week, snow was getting ugly brown, and the roads have been really slippery. Yesterday morning we woke up to a nice surprise, 10 centimetres of new snow! Bummer, delayed spring, but on the other hand, today has been gorgeous, bright blue skies and all that blinding white snow. Last weekend I thought it's our last chance for a family ski trip but now we managed to fit in another one. Last weekend we were luckier though, Jan Arne was able to join us, on foot, but anyway! Today it was just me and the kids, Jan Arne stayed at home to rest his legs. Since Jan Arne has been mostly stuck on the couch, in the evenings we have been enjoying the As Time Goes By DVDs we ordered. We are quite hooked on the series, great entertainment!

Tomorrow Jan Arne may make a trip to the hospital to have the doc check up on the swelling.