Todd's Journey

Well, the doctors may have finally figured out why I am suffering through the hiccups these days. They ran a chest x-ray on me Thursday and discovered that there is one cancer node that is pressed up really close to my diaphram. This seems to be what is irritating it, causing the hiccups.

The only real long term solution for that is chemotherapy. After more sessions of chemo, the node should shrink or die, and my diaphram may return to it's normal self again.

In the meantime, they have put me on a medication called Backofen, which is a muscle relaxant, to relax the diaghram in hopes to stop the hiccups. I am so happy to let you know that during the night I had almost 10 hours of sleep, WITHOUG HICCUPS. The Baclofen seems to work very very well at stopping the hiccups. And when it doesn't completely stop them, it certainly reduces the intensisty of them.

I have to thank both Dr. Mousette and Dr. Reaume for seemingly finding the solution to my hiccup issue. Dr.s have become more like investigators in medicine these days. They have to try and find the right combination of medications and treatments for a huge mess of symptoms.

The only real side effect to the Baclofen, is it is a muscle relaxant so it doesn't just work on my diaphram.. We discovered last evening, after trying it for the first time, that unless I go to bed within 30 minutes of taking it, I have great difficulty in walking. Last night I barely made it up the stairs when Jamie had to lower me down to the floor as my legs completely relaxed and gave me no help. While that doesn't sound great, Jamie and I did laugh about it. We did look rather pathetic sitting on the floor of the upstairs hallway waiting for a bit of strength to come back. Besides, for us, the fact the hiccups has lessened and almost completely resolved, was worth any small inconvenience of losing a bit of leg strength.

The lesson was learned. Now when taking Baclofen, we will make sure I head to bed before the full muscle relaxant effect kicks in.

So that's the update. It is a good update. And I honestly could not be happier to have found some relief from the hiccups. I would not wish that upon any of you. (including my enemies).

Talk to you all on Monday.