Another Field Trip and 9 More To Go

Only 9 more radiation treatments left to go. Yippee!!! While celebrating that milestone I had to take another field trip up to the lab at the hospital today. Last night I again ran a fever of over 102 only this time I did show some other symptoms such as a brief period of the chills and night sweats. The fever was able to be controlled with Motrin. This morning I called the medical oncologist office and they had be go up to the lab at the hospital for more tests and to get chest x-rays done. Fortunately they were able to coordinate this with my appointment for radiation. This time they are not waiting for the results to come back and have started my on antibiotics. The medical oncologists office called in the prescription for us to pick up and much to our surprise they had a hard time finding a pharmacy that carried this drug. We ended up getting it at a pharmacy downtown. Of course distance is relative here and this pharmacy was only 10 minutes away. I have to mention again the benefits of having all of the treatment and testing options available locally. The lab, x-ray and radiation facility are all a the hospital and relatively close to each other. To get my radiation treatment, x-rays done and the labs took only 1 hour and 15 minutes. Very convenient.

At the same time we have been working on the pain medication for the last few days. The one that they had me on wasn't lasting long enough between doses. They did tell me I could up the dose but when I did that it essentially put me to sleep and still wore off before it was time for the next dose. The radiation oncologist then put me on a patch. This has some advantages. First the patch lasts 3 days so I don't have to worry about getting up to take it every 4 hours. Second is that its profile for delivering the medicine is pretty much uniform. This particular medicine also helps dry out the nasal passages and mouth so it helps with some of the mucus flow at night. One patch wasn't enough so we moved to two patches at a time. I am also still taking the initial pain medication. when both of the two are working I don not feel to much pain in my throat and mouth. When the initial one wears off I feel more pain but not as bad as before I was using the patches. Talking at this point is very difficult and can be painful beyond one or two word answers. I apologize to anyone in advance whose calls I screen. Its nothing personal but I do need to save my voice when possible.

I am excited that there are only 9 treatments left. At the same time I approach the next 3 weeks with some apprehension. This is when the impact from the radiation treatment is supposed to be the worst. Also I have my third chemo treatment next Tuesday. The major impact of the radiation treatment is the "mother of all" sore throats and mouth, dry mouth which is very painful at night and the skin on my neck is starting to feel like it has had a severe sun burn. To treat the later I am using a skin moisturizer.

The reason I said it is the next 3 weeks that I am approaching with some apprehension is that the radiation treatments will be done is 2 weeks but the impact of the treatments continues to make you worse for a week afterwards. Fortunately for that last week I won't have to keep making daily trips for radiation treatment. If I need to I can load up the pain medication and not worry about sleeping through an appointment. :-)