Saturday, October 11th Today is a good day, I feel as normal as possible given the circumstances. My mouth is dry as usual, my lips are chapped and I have not had to medicate to control the pain in my mouth since about 4 AM and it is 9:30 AM so that is very good. My head is clear, I had a good nights sleep and it is College Football Saturday. The night before and the day of chemo I am given Dexamethasone which wikipedia gives the following information “a potent synthetic member of the glucocorticoid class of steroid hormones. It acts as an anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressant. Its potency is about 20-30 times that of hydrocortisone and 4-5 times of prednisone.”
The problem comes when the Dexamethasone wears off and that is when the crash comes. Which could be anytime but who knows. I have learned that how I feel in the mornings has nothing to do with how I will fell in the afternoon or night. But for now I am as normal as I can be.
Monday, October 13th the crash has come I am tired; everything hurts especially my mouth and tongue. Patty and I tried to walk to tonight and I didn’t make it very far about 100 yards round trip, will try to do better tomorrow. Radiation was uneventful and I sleep a good part of the day.
Tuesday, October 14 My mouth and tongue hurt so much I had Patty call and make an appointment with the dental Oncologist and then we went to radiation, I ask to see the doctor he did the normal stuff put on his gloves and his high tech light grabbed a tongue suppressor and ask me to open up, took one look at my tongue and then said “Well we don’t need this” and put the tongue suppressor and other stuff down and told me or what I heard him say was he was stopping treatment, what he meant was for the week, what I heard was just stopping treatment. As usual Patty was there to get me off the wall. I have a week of no radiation and rest which my body needs.
The Dental oncologist spent a lot time talking to us and going over everything including my medication, gave us some recommendations to talk to the medial oncologist about, made sure Patty wrote everything down and had the spelling correct. His name is Dr. Nelson Lowe he is simply the best, he is USC grad and as he is going through all of this with us he says “you know worst part of this? What happened in Oregon? We laughed and I was able to relax and settle down a bit, Patty and me both think not only is he a wonderful doctor but a great man.
Thank you to everyone who has sent me cards, Emails, flowers and prayers. They all are great one Email from my friends mom who I have never met prior to her sending me an Email, her name is Phyllis Varipapa, Phyllis told me “please don't give up, Keep the faith and persevere” Phyllis if you can take the time out to write; I promise to never give up and with faith I will always persevere.
Thanks to everyone, be well I still choose to Fight On.
Michael
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3 comments:
the good thing about a break in treatment is you maybe able to enjoy the weekend and football games. Brunch on Sunday for our game with friends and family (Nikki you may have to watch your team on the bedroom TV, but we will send you in food)
I have always known that we are very lucky people to have so many wonderful family and friends in our lives. We have also discovered how wonderful and thoughtful our neighbors are we have received many well wishes, cards and notes with offers to help a hand. Thank you !
Patty
Thanks for letting me watch my football game in the living room... I guess it helped that it was on a Monday night! So great to see you both last week. It was reassuring to see Seal in person. I believe the fighting is working - fight on! xoxo
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