Storm Clouds Are Clearing

It seems that the storm clouds from the last chemo treatment are now clearing. The weekend was a bit of a rough ride culminating on Monday. For some reason the mouth sores seemed to be worse this time around and that impacts the other symptoms and seems to magnify their effects. Now the mouth sores seemed to have peaked and are in decline so that means I am through the worst of it and on the upward trend. Yippee!

My voice is still out at this point but that should start to come back towards the end of the week. My big goal now is getting to the point where I can eat real food. Next week I meet with the oncologist for a check up and at that point I plan to get a referral to the ENT doctor to get his take on what we can do to move the process along. I do need to realistic and not push this too hard. I have read accounts of cancer patients that end up pushing themselves too fast during recovery without good results. I also need to set realistic expectations.

I have two basic side effects right now that are having an impact on me. The first of course is the swallowing problem. The second is my energy level and general fatigue. This is the symptom that I think people may tend to overdue. Its been over 6 months since I have done any real physical activity and it shows. It took 6 months of no activity to get to this point (not to mention all the wonderful drug and radiation treatments. :-)) its going to take some time to get back to where I was. That doesn't mean I expect to be out of it for 6 months I just have to be realistic and not expect to reach the same activity level I was at before treatment in just a month or two. It may take a bit longer than that. Fortunately now is the time for outdoor activities and there are lots of small things that can be done outdoors in moderation. I don't need to go to the mall to get in a walk.