Radiation

I started the radiation treatment on Monday. The treatment itself takes about 20 minutes and is painless. I've got to do 10 treatments in two weeks, which means I'm in for radiation every weekday this week and next week. They're running treatments up until nine in the evening and it seems they've given me quite a few late appointments.

I also saw the doctor on Tuesday and had a blood test done. The CRP (infection level) was 60, which I thought was high, but the doctor said it's caused by the overall situation of the cancer and nothing to worry about, except it of course shows the cancer is quite advanced now. The other values were more or less fine. In addition to radiation I'll be getting a new drug called Zometa as an IV every 3-4 weeks. It is used to treat tumours in the skeleton as well as reduce possible pain. Together with Zometa I've got to eat Calsium and D-vitamin pills. Zometa can have some side effects, mostly headache and other flu-like symptoms, luckily usually short-term.

We discussed the insomnia problem again and as a result we agreed I'd try and take both melatonin together with a sleeping pill. I started this the very same evening and guess what? I slept seven hours straight! The same happenend last night. Today I've been totally out of it though and I've slept several hours on the living room couch. It could be that some side-effects of Zometa have kicked in (tiredness is one) at the same time.

During this winter one of the Finnish TV channels (FST) has been showing both seasons of "Livet på Hvaler", a Norwegian TV-series from 2008 and 2009. In Norway the title was "Hvaler". Both Marjo and I have really enjoyed the TV series. Great entertainment! We have also been watching a lot of British TV-series, we saw all episodes of Vicar of Dibley and this week we ordered three DVDs of As Time Goes By from Amazon.