H. O. T.

As in Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. I’ve had three treatments so far, 17 more to go. It’s been, shall we say, challenging. In short, let’s put it this way -- I will never become a SCUBA diver.

In HOT you are placed in an airtight glass tube and breath 100% oxygen (usually we breath about 20%) while at the same time you are under greater than normal atmospheric pressure. It can increase the oxygen levels in your body tissues which better enables new blood vessels to grow and can also help treat/prevent infections by supporting white blood cells.

The language the hyperbaric doctors and nurses use is very much like that used by divers -- they talk about taking you down to a level of thus & such feet, but of course you are not actually moving, it’s just referring to the amount of pressure.

My biggest problem has been with my ears. During your descent (again, not really moving) you are supposed to clear your ears…swallowing, yawning, pinching your nose and gently blowing, that sort of thing. Some people can do it a few times and be done with it. Not me – they have to descend me slower than usual and I have to clear my ears vigorously during my entire descent (about 20 minutes). Once I’m down to the right level I lay there watching TV and trying to hear it above the constant whooshing noise of the air. I stay like that for 90 minutes. After that they bring me up slowly again and my ears sound like Rice Krispies on steroids (normal)…but unfortunately they don’t quite fully clear. The doctor examines my ears each time, and each time they are red and have bubbles behind the eardrums. I’ve been repeatedly assured by the hyperbaric doctors and my own private ENT that my ears are in no real danger; it’s just very uncomfortable…like the congestion one might have with a wicked cold. By the time it starts to go away I am back for another session.

Another challenge is that I already have chronic tinnitus. It’s a long story I’ll tell someday but at its onset I was driven nearly insane by the constant ringing, so much so that it drove me to therapy. I managed to overcome it but this process makes it a bit of an issue again so I’m having some anxiety problems as well (as if I didn’t already!)

Not to toot my own horn, but the doctor who runs the hyperbaric program said I was one tough cookie – and since I usually don’t see myself that way I took it as a compliment.

The other challenge is that this place is quite the commute, 45min to get there and about an hour to come home since I hit rush hour traffic. When you add it all up it takes at least 3.5 hours out of my day. I now have a part time job – healing this wound has taken over a huge chunk of my life to say the least.

But bottom line, I am grateful to have the opportunity to do this. It will help to speed my healing which is crucial since I can’t start chemo until this wound is completely healed. The more things I can do to encourage healing, the better. And despite the hassle and challenges I think this therapy is really very interesting and could be promising for a lot of people with various medical problems, so I hope that by sharing this little smattering of info it helps someone else who may need it :)