Today was day 18 of 35 treatments so I just passed the half-way point. Yea!!!!
That’s all the good news. There’s no sugar coating this one but today really sucked. After sleeping well (pain meds) I got up feeling halfway decent – for about 5 minutes. Then I took my anti-nausea med and more pain pills. My RAD appointment was later today (11:30 intead of 8:30) and so I tried to eat. It took 2 hours to consume an Instant Breakfast smoothie and a bowl of oatmeal. The growing nausea was getting to be too much. Each spoonful was followed by 10 minutes of lying down. I’m told my problem is probably due to chemo (hits people after about 2 days; it’s been 2 days).I went as scheduled and took my barf bucket with me and immediately went to an exam room to lie down. I knew I was in trouble. They gave me more meds for nausea and it didn’t matter. Some of my breakfast returned. The new med finally took effect and I finished my treatment and went home….and slept for another 3 hours ( I also slept another hour between breakfast and my appointment). Nearing the end of week 4 I think beginning to understand this better – well maybe. I thought my eating problem would mostly be because of the inability to swallow due to pain and throat damage from Buck Roger’s Ray Gun ( I know young people are asking: who the hell is Buck Rogers). The feeding tube I’ll be getting would solve that problem. However, I’m beginning to understand that my body’s total rejection of anything “food” is the problem. Feeding tube or no feeding tube, with nausea, food isn’t going in easily and may not hang around. Hence weight loss. I’m still hovering at 142 (my normal weight) but I sense it will start coming down soon. Just can’t eat enough – yet I can still swallow.
On a small good note, no return of my 102 fever so far. Tomorrow I have the chemo treatment without the chemo (liquids and steroids and anti- nausea meds etc.) which is supposed to perk me up. We’ll see. I recovered from my nap, my nausea is gone and I ate without incident this evening. Great conversation: “how are you today?” “Well, I ate without incident.” Progress baby!!!
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