May 15 Update

Hello All,

Well I am in so called ‘recovery week’ in that treatment finished on Tuesday. I have be warned by almost everyone I encounter who has gone through this that this is the toughest period because you haven’t hit the turn around point on the run yet and once you do the route back is much longer in time then the 7/8 weeks it took to get here. I got a glimpse of that at 1AM in the morning when I woke up with a sharp pain in my jaw joint…back to PMH on my first day ‘off’ from such activity. Met the radiation nurse and Dr…infected parotid gland…antibiotics for a week 3 times a day added to the schedule. Oh well.

Thursday brought cramps and diarrhea…side effect of medication. We have been in a 7 week quest to balance out the laxatives because morphine can lead to constipation. Literally got it right for 2 days then this. Friday saw family doctor who suggested just lay off laxatives meds. We are now letting antibiotic and morphine dual out for bowel supremacy.

Also had my first infusion of vitamin cocktail at Naturopathic College on Friday as well. Will do that twice a week for next little while. One of the nastier issues is mycosis, a very thick, ‘unspitable’ mucus that build in your mouth and collects at the back of your throat…tough to deal with. I have taken an aggressive, hack like hell, approach until yesterday when my upchuck reflex kicked in and I lost 4 hours of feeding in about 30 seconds.

Home care nurse came yesterday. She was a wound care specialist so I now have a very impressive bandage on the worst area of burns to my neck from radiation. Mine don’t look to bad compared to some I have seen on the internet.

I can’t shake my optimistic view that I will recover fast and more completely than what I read. I have no evidence for this and indeed the scale now tells me I am down 23 pounds. Trying to swallow once an hour and plan on starting to walk more. I also think we can start to create a few healthier things to put into me.

On the picture front things are, well, SNAFU, situation normal all ‘frigged’ up! I now have WE LOVE U…the U being Lanny, my son in law, in his fireman’s outfit with the hose shaped like a U. I gather from side conversations that there should be a y and an o before that U. I’ll keep you posted. I am going to attempt to add the pictures to the blog. That may take a while... and help so check back in a day or so.

Thank goodness for wonderful diversions like the play offs and my beloved Jays and all the new people I hear from each week. Thanks for listening to this…it’s nice to get it off my chest…what’s left of it.

Warm Regards,

Peter