June 14, 2011 - Catch 22

June 14, 2011 – Catch 22

First of all I want to thank my blog readers for rallying to my cause after my last depressing posting. Many of you sent your support my way despite my very negative analysis of the situation. This one might not be much better but I’m going to keep it honest no matter what happens.

Many of us older folks remember the book and movie Catch 22 (from the 1960’s). I think the premise was about pilots trying to avoid combat missions by claiming they were crazy but if they had enough sense to try to avoid flying combat missions than that proved they weren’t crazy. A classic “can’t win” situation.

Here is my Catch 22:  I need to eat to keep from losing weight but I also need to take pain pills because of my burned up throat. The pain pills nauseate me and wreck my digestion and keep me from eating much but if I quit taking them I’ll have severe pain that will prevent me from doing much of anything including eating. So what will happen first, will my pain subside in time for me to reduce narcotics and eat or will I starve to death. I don’t know. I’ve calculated I’ve lost about 20 pounds now and on my way to 30 or so. At some point my wife will outweigh me; six to eight weeks at current loss rates. In 3 or 4 months I’ll be on the back of a men’s magazine as the 98 pound weakling. I wonder if I’ll live long enough to weigh 98 pounds (I was about 143). We’ll see.

I’m off the pain patches (Fentanyl: gave me mucho nausea, vomiting and now a rash on my lower legs) and I'm back to only Oxycodone. ChemoDoc has me on a more rigid 3 times per day anti-nausea medication (Zofran), with a  4-times-per-day gastric “speed up” med (Reglan?) and 6 times per day of pain meds (1.5 to 2 Oxys every 4 hours). Other stuff on occasion too.

Emotions:  Disappointment, disillusionment, disgust, frustration, anger, sadness, fear (not of dying but of the slow miserable process of doing so), boredom…..that’s all I can think of. Even if I rally and this works out I wonder if I’ll ever feel the same again. I feel traumatized by this experience; sort of a PTSD kind of thing where I’ll have trouble enjoying life again due to this experience. I may never be the confident, somewhat arrogant, highly opinionated guy that reached age 62 in spite of his faults. Music and golf? I don’t know. Travel? What if I can’t eat normally (a likely outcome)? I just don’t know.