August 2, 2011 – Another Day, Another……..Day.

Each day does feel like the day before now. I fight pain, queasiness, and boredom and I struggle to figure out how to get enough nutrition into my declining body. I’ve tried night feeding, day feeding, gradual feeding, frequent small feedings and every other configuration but the junk I’m trying to live on will only go in so much before my stomach rejects it. So, I’ve been forcing myself to eat more real food by mouth.

I get up and have an Instant Breakfast made with mostly half-and-half instead of skim milk and drink the whole thing. Then a few hours later I make oatmeal from one of those packets, again with half and half and eat that too. By then my throat is on fire so my next meal is usually the hated IsoSource that I let trickle down my feeding tube. Today I also ate about half a milkshake as well as some soup. My wife and I decided I need a more balanced diet instead of this high fat high sugar junk that is trying to kill me so she’s going to make some version of beef stew that I’ll eat the best I can.

I’m also trying to wean myself off these narcotics so I’m down to one 5MG Oxycodone combined with one 500 MG of Acetaminophen. I think that means I’m taking a homemade Percocet now. I’m also taking them every 5 hours instead of 4. I’d like to see how my stomach acts without any narcotic running through my body.  

From what I’ve been reading, many cancer patients seem to have trouble eating. Like me they feel full after a relatively small amount of food. I don’t know why I’m not hungrier and don’t know why my stomach rebels from a relatively small quantity of food but it does. That’s keeping my weight at a precarious level (still down about 20) but recent blood tests don’t show any medical issues from malnutrition so I guess I’m ok at the moment.

I’ll keep plugging away at this and can only hope that I’ll get out of this horrible rut I’m in. I’m trying everything I can think of. I see RadDoc tomorrow, my ENT doc next Monday and my CT scan on the 23^rd (to find out if cancer is gone; I believe it is). Until next time folks….live life like there’s no tomorrow because you never know when that will be true.