Week by Week Updates - Weeks 1 & 2

It's a bit late to start this. But, better late than never. I thought a short summary at the end of every treatment week might be worthwhile. I'm almost at the end of week 3 now. So I need to play catch up.

Week 1
Totally uneventful. Chemo went over without a hitch. The entire procedure includes 3 different drugs to help deal with possible side effects, especially nausea. Then I get a half liter of saline with magnesium and potassium to help protect my kidneys from the ravages of the the cisplatin, which is followed by another half liter of the saline Mg+ K+ solution. Total time for the complete infusion is about 4.5 hours. Then I hoof it down to radiation for my 20+ minutes tied to the carbon fiber table.

They sent me home with a couple of different anti-emetics and told me "don't wait til you feel sick to take them. Just do it on this schedule and you should be fine." I did as I was told and had no ill effects all week.

Week 2
Same routine as week 1 with similar results.  Only took one anti-emetic the morning after chemo and didn't suffer at all from nausea.  Still no effects from radiation early in the week. But then came Thursday. Suddenly, tap water tasted slightly brackish. Not bad... just "off".  Later that day I was at a neighbor's home drinking beer and snacking on cheese and crackers.  The beer tasted wrong and the cheese and crackers were pretty flavorless.

For Friday morning breakfast I had grits with onions and hot Italian sausage.WOW!! That sausage was really hot! My mouth burned a lot more than it had when I ate the other links in that package. And as the day progressed, I noticed that many other foods irritated my mouth and throat.  By mid- afternoon it really hurt to swallow anything.  This triggered my first funk. It's not even the end of week 2 and it already hurts this badly?!? I've got 5 more weeks of this shit to endure! I allowed myself to wallow in a shallow puddle of self pity for a while.

Saturday morning after 8 solid hours of sleep I felt pretty good. I got up; fixed myself a nice, big (if bland) breakfast; checked my email while drinking a cup of coffee and then took a half hour nap. Afterwards, I puttered around the house for a while and then took a full hour nap. Apparently, the promise of chemo lethargy has now been fulfilled. Meanwhile, most food tastes like nothing. Hard to explain, but it really has no flavor at all. My nose still works great. Everything smells normal. But nothing at all tastes right.  Few things taste bad, but absolutely nothing tastes really good. Unfortunately, beer is one of the few things that taste really nasty. I haven't had one since Thursday afternoon and have absolutely no desire to try another one any time soon. The only thing I crave is (get this) chocolate milk. I downed a half gallon this afternoon and would have had more if there was more to have. In fact, that's about all I consumed all afternoon and evening.

Sunday was a one nap day filled with more chocolate milk. My throat was still sore, but I was kind of getting used to it. So much for week 2.... on to week 3.