Thank god I'm not lactose intolerant. I'm living on a diet of chocolate milk, yogurt and ice cream. Seriously, that's about all I can handle. Everything else either hurts too much or tastes like nothing. Spent some time with the dietitian at the Cancer Center looking for suggestions on how to expand my eating choices. She had lots of info for people with chemo-induced taste changes. Add more spice. Marinate meats in citrus juice & etc. Unfortunately, none of these ideas are appropriate for those of us with throats aggravated by radiation burns. Last night while I ate my yogurt and slurped more chocolate milk, Barbara dined on a Caesar salad. Damn, it smelled great - anchovies, garlic, Parmesan and lemon!!! I reached over, grabbed a piece of romaine, popped it in my mouth and immediately regretted it. Searing pain from lemon juice and raw garlic sent me back to the comfort of my beloved chocolate milk.
As for the constant sore throat that started late in week 2. It hurts just as bad now, but since it's a constant irritant I kind of accept it as part of the "new normal". Meanwhile, my gums are getting really tender and my soft palate is really inflamed. My morning coffee (thankfully, coffee somehow still tastes good) is now imbibed at ambient temperature.
On Tuesday (chemo day) Jill the dietitian brought me a bag full of different nutritional drinks to help fortify and diversify my diet. The fortification idea is good. I need more calories than I'm ingesting. As for diversity - the only thing that tasted good was chocolate. Oh well, yet another source of chocolate milk. The ginger snap ice cream I've been eating is still tasting good. But I have to spit out the pieces of ginger snaps because they are too spicy. Here's a look at what a trip to the grocery store yields now.
The only thing missing is a gallon of chocolate milk. Prune juice is about my only source of dietary fiber. I tried making a smoothie with banana and chocolate milk (of course) last night and was surprised to learn that bananas burn my throat, too. So much for that idea.
Thursday I started a new radiation schedule. From now on I get zapped at 8:30 am instead of 3:30 pm. Totally different crowd in the waiting area at this time of day. This is apparently a popular time for guys with prostate cancer. They joke around and basically act like guys. All of them have bright futures once they endure getting their crotches zapped for a few weeks. This is very different from the afternoon group with their more serious cancer concerns.
Thursday is also the day for my weekly meeting with my radiation oncologist. Last week she ended our conversation with the following homily. "From now on, how well the treatment goes depends largely on how well you tolerate pain." I'm now 1/3 through with the radiation - 14 treatments down and 28 more to go. I told her that I was probably in more pain this week than last, but because last week's pain was new and this week's was just the "new normal' that I probably felt better now than then. She let me know that my blood work looks good and I seem to be doing fine. I asked for a better explanation of "fine". She replied "From the way your mouth and throat look, I would expect you to complain a lot more. You'll get through this fine." Here's a photo of my mouth if you're interested.
Saturday is the low point of my chemo week.Seems like the poison catches up with me and drains me of energy for a day. This morning Barbara and I took off for an early walk with the dogs to beat the heat. After hiking only about 3/4 mile I was ready to turn back. Barbara and the dogs kept going and I plodded slowly back to the car, resting twice along the way. By the time I reached the car the sky appeared to be shimmering with blue, purple and silver highlights. Juniper trees radiated blue, green and silver sparks. My head was spinning and cold sweat was pouring over me. Then, I remembered a warning from one of my many cancer care workers. Chemo can seriously depress blood pressure and require suspending or altering ingestion of other meds for controlling blood pressure. Sure enough, my BP measured a whopping 80/60 when I got home. After a 2 hour nap it had rebounded to a more reasonable 105/75 and I felt a lot better.
Sunday's dog walk was a lot more fun than yesterday's. I skipped the BP meds and we met Kevin, Jacque, Harley and Olive for a 3+ mile hike in the BLM lands. That's more like it. Jacque brought me some cardamom ice cream hoping it would break the no-taste barrier. I'm not sure I tasted much spice, but the cardamom aroma was so strong it added up to a really pleasant experience. Add this one the the must-eat-more list.
No comments:
Post a Comment