Down to a Dozen

I am now amazingly down to just 12 radiation treatments left. The fatigue from them this last week has delayed this post and I am sorry for that. It is difficult to get motivated to really do anything outside of just the basics when you constantly feel tired. Anyway, I did see my medical oncologist on Tuesday. I had my second and last dose of Cisplatin. It was a long day (8 hours at the hospital) and I am glad Andrea was with me to get through it all. Before my treatment the doctor saw my skin and rash and decided to again further delay any more treatments from the clinical drug erbitux. He told me that we could now wait a maximum of four weeks in between doses. He original had told me two weeks. My skin has cleared up tremendously since Tuesday, so I might get my fourth dose this coming Tuesday. I asked him if the rash would come back as severe as I had gotten it. He did not really have a answer, other then to not really know either way because of the relatively new use of this drug. He also stated that about 10% on patients develop the rashes as severe as I did. It will be a wait see aspect I am guessing, if I do start back up on it. I will try to let everyone know by Wednesday, or if we are going to wait another week. I am officially on a liquid diet now. It has just become to difficult to swallow anything. I am using my feeding tube for everything, and I am very glad to have it. I am now staying better hydrated because I can just give myself as much water as I need through the tube. I really only have pain when I swallow at the moment. The constant pain in my throat will come this week during and after my final 12 radiation treatments. The plan for pain right now will be percocet and then moving to a fendentyl patch when the percocets are not longer doing the job. In other words the fun is about to begin. After the last treatment on the 20th, the radiation will still be affecting me for up to 60 days afterward. It is only after then that I will begin to start healing. The radiation oncologist stated that I am on one of the most aggressive radiation therapies out there, so I end up with some really bad side effects because of it, and also because of the location of where the therapy is being targeted. The tonsil area has a lot of sensitive tissue area around it that unfortunately receives collateral damage from the radiation, no matter how good the targeting is. All of this is done to insure that all the cancer cells are killed from the tumor, and to also get the places the cells might try to hid or escape to around the tumor. My thanks again to Debby Crawford for the ride to a treatment this week. Also big thanks to Andrea's mom who is up from Tampa helping us out. She has been a angel helping with everything around the house. Thanks to all my friends and family for the continued support.