day 1 down - 36 to go

The first day is history. And more answers to our ever ending questions for what is really going to happen.

There will be 37 days of radiation spread over 8 weeks. And every week that I have radiation I will have chemo so I will have 7 or 8 chemo treatments (which includes the one I had today). I will have radiation every morning (like 7am morning!) five days a week (excluding holidays and other events as Dr Corwin deems necessary. That being said, radiation could last well into July depending on the circumstances of radiation. So at 11am this morning, I went to have blood work, a visit with Dr Rastogi, lunch with Lucille, radiation, a visit with Dr Corwin and 2 1 /2 hours of chemo. So finished the day around 4:30pm.

During radiation, you get pinned to the bed as in the pictures from yesterday for about 30 minutes. I think I can feel the radiation hitting the cancer. But then again it might be that it is so quiet in the radiation, I feel my pulse. No lights to show where the beam is being pushed, just some red lasers making sure the right spots are lined up. Dr Corwin did tell us that the this ct scan did not show any cancer. The radiation is in the area as if it was there. So it appears that the two heavy doses of chemo pretty well took care of the cancer. The radiation is to just make sure there is none left to come back.

I was also informed that I needed a feeding tube (a peg) inserted into my stomach sometime next week as the length of time for radiation would make it extremely difficult to swallow enough calories to keep my weight up. We think it will be next Thursday. It will be after I do radiation in the morning, then surgery and then radiation again the next day! Anyone want to take this journey with me? (I would not wish this on anyone!!).

So after radiation I went to chemo lab for a 2 1/2 hour treatment. Got a needle into my port, some saline, took a horse pill (literally, I will split in two next week to take it), had some anti-nausea medicine and then an hour of cysplatin. This took an hour to put into today and will probably ask for a little longer next time as I could feel the push of the fluids today. Then once a week I will have to have x-rays of neck. So it appears that I will spend at least 1/2 of a day doing radiation/chemo every week, maybe 3/4 of a day depending on scheduling.

Oh how do I feel? As of right now, not too bad. I have medicine I am to take if I even start feeling sick. Hopefully, this dose will not make me sick. The radiation will eventually make me not able to swallow due to the burning and soreness of my throat. Also have to work on keeping my swallowing reflect going and hydrated! So have to pay alot of attention to drinking, eating 2000 calories a day, and swallowing all the time. I will have alot of caregivers keeping me in line, I'm sure. And some of you will enjoy it more than others!! (Some of you should be smiling right now!).

Thanks for you support and prayers. I believe this will be my most trying of the three treatments. But God will see this family through, that I believe. Attitude is all important and many of my caregivers will also be working hard to make sure it is positive! This will be a long treatment, but I am 1/37 down. Thanks to ya'll for everything. You just don't know how much it means to us. Nite all...;