Hello All and welcome back to my journey.......... I timed this blog to be written today and however long it takes me these days to do one---you see, radiation has me s-l-o-w-i-n-g me down these days---as I wanted it to follow an extremely significant day in my life. Gladly for me and my blog, (and another significant person) it turned out to be a wonderful day. One of the reasons that made it so wonderful was that leading up to it and going into this day, frankly I was feeling very down with a DEPRESSING outlook. I reflected on this day to come for a few weeks and I spent some very lonely times on the radiation table thinking about it. So the day and the story (in 2 parts) is.........
October 6, 2010
PART ONE; The Medical Side............. My last journal entry covered Weeks 1 and 2 of radiation and let us not forget that little side trip to the ER. This entry will cover Weeks 3 thru today....basically Week 5 1/2. While there is not nearly the detail and THE BIG ASS THUD that the last blog had, there surely have been many ups and downs that I've lived thru over these past weeks.
As of the finish of this blog, I ONLY have 2 radiation sessions to go---Friday and Monday. Monday being a make up for missing on Labor Day. Then the zapping is done!!! While surely I look forward to that with much, much anticipation of finishing, it also opens up a different chapter of the unknown. The doctor and staff have warned me that some symptoms might actually get WORSE after the radiation is finished. Boy I was just plain overjoyed to hear that little tidbit! I guess you can liken it to withdrawal from smoking or drugs as how your body reacts to something that it is used to on a regular basis. My body over 5 1/2 weeks has gotten used to the radiation and some parts of it will react negatively or differently when radiation stops. EG.....just during the time it took to type these almost 2 paragraphs, I have had to pick up and go spit 3 times. Now let me tell you spit is a kind way of describing the shit that comes out of my mouth these days....every day, all day. It wakes me up at times and it keeps me awake at times. So the secretions are very heavy, very thick and come very often. But the crap that comes out of my mouth now, will change once radiation is complete and take the form of TOTAL dry mouth for most likely 2 months. Another tidbit from the nurse practitioner that I was THRILLED to learn. So while I sit and type and spit away, I think I'd rather have this than the total dry mouth that is to follow.
As I've said previously, all the side effects and problems I'm having were all detailed to me by the doctors and staff. Yes, I've pretty much gotten hit with all the ones we discussed during these past Weeks 3, 4 and 5 and now into early Week 6. Taste distortions---Yes. Mouth and Throat Sores---Yes. Gum sores---Yes. Difficulty swallowing (BIG TIME since end of Week 4)---Yes. My tongue feeling as if firecrackers have been placed on it---Yes. Loss of desire to eat (VERY SCARY ONE HERE for me but)---Yes. Weight loss---Yes. Patchy hair loss---Yes. Fatigue (Most Recently)---Yes. Exterior of my neck (Above Photo) looking like someone took a blow torch to it---Yes. They've so seriously got it nailed that on 2 occasions, once in Week 3 and once in Week 5, they prescribed new medicines for me "in advance of sores and pain" one day and the problems showed up the next day even before I had a chance to get the prescriptions filled. They really are on top of their shit!
Back to the side effects, probably the 2 that grate on me the most are my feelings towards food and the condition of my neck. Surely I hope as I stop radiation I hope this changes, but the look and smell of foods that I cannot eat right now basically makes me feel nauseous. My menu over the past 2 weeks has taken on a "Groundhog Day" feel to it......same shit---day in/day out. Carnation Instant Breakfast, Ensure, Yogurt, Pudding, Cream of Wheat, Soup Broth, Scrambled Eggs....lots and lots and lots of scrambled eggs and Angel Hair pasta SOAKED with butter. With all other real people foods it's like, YUK! Open up the frig, YUK! See an Outback Steakhouse commercial on TV, YUK! Drive by a Chines restaurant, YUK! I feel like I'm in some kind of Twilight Zone episode. Rod Serling is here and for your viewing pleasure tonight....."The Man Who LOVED to Eat is Now Sickened By It". Oh the horror, Oh the pain.!!! So I'm not yet at this sickened/panicked state about food, but it does have me worried. Also by visual evidence in the photo at the lead of this blog, I'm not doing cartwheels over the my neck. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not hiding in a corner or going outside with a burka on my neck covering all problems. As I've said previously, I've already had my negotiations with God and a nice, big visible scar along with the rest of the mess my neck is was something I already traded to him for the ability to live well and live long. BUT, it does bother me like it would bother any of you if you had an OPEN sunburn in multiple spots that would not go away. Collars bother me, seat belts bother me, picking my head up and down bothers me. I can feel the burn on my neck just looking at the computer screen right now.
But some good things came out of these weeks as well. During Week 3 I got a visit from my sister Mary Ann and my brother-in-law Bob....who in better terms is really my brother Bob as he has been that close to me for as long as I've known him. Plus people believe we are brothers as we look alike....except for the the fact that he is physically fit and right about now my body resembles something you can find in a Play Doh jar. There aren't 2 better people to come visit me and help to pick my spirits up. It was very kind of them to come and I'll never forget it! And Week 3 was a good time to come as I was just about to get over the halfway hump. They did jinx me in one way though. I must have been so "keyed up" over their visit that when they took me to my Thursday treatment that week, it didn't take me once or twice or 3 times, etc........but it took my radiation techs SIX tries before they could get me in the right place on the treatment table. So I blame them for making me so excited that I couldn't sit still for the Techs!!! The other small bit of good news, which I really liked, was that the radiation killed whisker growth on my face and and on my neck. So now I basically have sideburns, a mustache and some random gray hairs on my face. Nothing that we can really still call a beard. But the REAL good news is that I have ZERO whiskers growing on my neck and I've hated shaving my neck forever. But it surely wouldn't be very fun right now---above photo as proof.
But the BIG good news, the REAL BIG good news is that I'm almost done. I'm almost at the goal line. More good news is, I'm ready to dive into getting better each and every day once radiation ends. More good news is, that I'm ready to fight the fight to get my life back as I knew it, back for me to enjoy the way I knew it. But not just for me to enjoy, but for Grace, Matt, Arianna and Josh to enjoy the return to "old times" around here.
While this covers that past few weeks up until October 6th, there was a much more important and a much more personal item that covered that same October 6th date. Part 2 of this blog will cover that. Until then..............
God Bless You and Best Regards!
David D
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