Chemo Part II: Day II No Hurricanes so far.

Day II went pretty well. The biggest challenge is keeping up on the feedings and in particular water. I have found that two 8 ounces cans of the "food" I am supposed to take at a time is pretty hard. It just fills me up too much. I am working up towards that but it will take some time. Today I did hit 1500 calories, a bit short of the goal, but I also got in 64 ounces of water. One of the big things with Cisplatin is to consume 64 ounces of liquid a day for the first 3 days to get it out of your system. This helps avoid kidney and liver damage. I think the stuff they gave me for feedings counts but I am also taking in extra water through the tube just to be sure.

The other thing different this time is that I started right off with the medications when I got home. That also seems to have helped. The only really discomfort is from indigestion after the feedings. I think that has to do with the volume. The belt setup arrived yesterday to hold the feeding tube and that has worked out real well. The company, NedMed, was great to deal with. I couldn't find a reseller with it in stock so I sent the company an e-mail to get pricing and where to order it. They were able to sell it to me directly and bill me for it based on an e-mail. Very consumer friendly. The shipping fees were very reasonable and it arrived in 3 business days. They are a small company but I would recommend their products to anyone. The person that answered my e-mail even took the time to read through my blog and with me luck with the treatment.

The other change from the last chemo treatment is that I have been under going radiation treatments now for 3 weeks. While my throat has gotten worse over the course of the treatments I have noticed this last week that the radiation has had less of an impact on how I feel afterwards. It is only speculation but I think that the tumor was putting a lot of pressure on several areas in my sinuses. As the tumor in that area was getting zapped and started to shrink other areas were moving around as the pressure was relieved. There was also a lot of mucus that was released. I think these changes may have accounted for some of how I felt a few hours after each treatment. That appears to have eased at this point. Right now the big thing is fatigue. Even that seems to be better than last time but I do need to take naps during the day. In another post I will talk about one of the other effects of radiation and that is skin irritation and some hair loss.