Radiation treatment side effects

A Little Bit of a Scare

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Weight: 155.6

It’s been 5 months since my last radiation treatment. I wouldn’t say I’m one hundred percent but I’m closer to one hundred percent than I thought I’d ever be just a few months ago, so that’s great. I’ve been back to work for 7 weeks and started lifting in the gym for the first time in 3 years. My taste is steadily improving and the throat pain is gone. I still have dry mouth but ACT lozenges and my ever present bottle of water help with that.

About 10 days ago I noticed a hard lump on the left side of my neck. It felt similar to the lymph node that started this whole ordeal 10 months ago. I already had a visit with the ENT Dr. Huang scheduled for today so I figured I’d just wait and ask him about it when I saw him.

Over the past week I’ve constantly been checking the new intruder to see if I could detect any changes. It appeared to be getting smaller. Also when I first noticed it, it was painful. It is no longer painful and got noticeably smaller which was encouraging.

At my checkup today I asked Dr. Huang about it. He checked it out and said it was actually swelling in my carotid artery. He was certain it’s not a return of cancer and said it’s nothing to be concerned about. He felt that it was probably caused by my constantly self checking my neck. I’m always checking my neck for anything unusual since the original diagnosis of cancer in the lymph node. Apparently I’ve developed a habit of feeling my neck which has irritated it and caused the lump. His advice to me was simply “Stop playing with it”, which got a juvenile chuckle out of me.

I guess for a while it will be normal to expect the worst every time there’s a lump, unexplained cough or anything else out of the ordinary. I was never concerned about these things back when I thought “It can’t happen to me”. Now that I realize it can, everything appears to be a threat. Hopefully this will ease up over time but for right now, it’s all still pretty fresh in my mind and hard to ignore.

Everything went well at my visit with Dr. Huang and I’m still cancer free.

10 Weeks Post Radiation Treatment

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It has been 10 weeks since my last radiation treatment. I guess it was overly optimistic of me to think that I’d be back to normal by now. I do feel much better and have more energy and fewer episodes of fatigue. I’m also maintaining my weight with the help of a feeding tube, although I’m 20 lbs lighter than when I started treatments. Things are definitely improving but at a much slower pace than I had hoped.

I have much of my taste back but textures of foods feel all wrong. My throat gets very irritated if I try to swallow any food. It’s also very difficult to get anything other than liquids down. It feels like my throat has shrunk and it takes a lot of water to help it down due to lack of saliva production. I’m starting to eat more but the throat pain limits my intake.

I need to be able to eat enough to maintain my weight without supplementing with the feeding tube so I can finally have it removed. It’s strange how some things taste exactly like they did before but now are not enjoyable at all. I don’t have cravings for anything anymore. I can’t wait to start enjoying food again, eat full time and lose the tube.

When this started I was strongly opposed to getting a feeding tube. Now I realize I couldn’t have made it through this without it. It allowed me to pump in all of my calories and nutrition which made healing possible. It really hasn’t negatively impacted my daily activities. As long as I tape it down good, so it doesn’t get snagged on anything, it doesn’t get in the way.

I saw the ENT last week who said that everything looks good and is healing normally. I’m scheduled for a PET scan on November 14th. This will be at 12 weeks post treatment. Hoping all goes well with that! I’m really looking forward to getting back to work. I’m so lucky to work for a great company. The management and my fellow employees at Frye-Williamson have been super supportive. I can’t thank them enough.

I managed 3 or 4 bites before I had to give up.

3 Weeks Post Radiation Treatment

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Weight: 153.8

I feel like I’ve turned a corner. The burns on my neck are starting to heal but still there, my throat is not as sore as it was but still uncomfortable. I feel much better than last week. I have good days followed by bad ones which is weird. It’s more of a two step forward one step back type of progression. It is slow. The improvement from one day to the next isn’t noticeable but week to week it is.

last week I put salt in my mouth to see if I could taste it. I followed that with sugar. I couldn’t taste either of them. They both tasted like I had sand in my mouth. I did it again today and the taste was very faint but I could definitely tell the difference between them. This is really exciting. The sooner I can start eating, the sooner I can get rid of the feeding tube and start getting back to normal.

4th of July Weekend

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  • Chemo- 3 of 7
  • Radiation- 9 of 33
  • Weight- 170

I got a break from radiation on the 4th of July which was nice. My brother grilled burgers, brats and hotdogs and everyone brought a dish. There were about 20 people there. Unfortunately, the nausea from the chemo was at its peak on Thursday but I managed to wrestle down a hotdog. It didn’t really taste like a hotdog but I ate it anyway. Everything tastes bad now.

Last week milk tasted spoiled but now it has no taste at all, so, I’m back to drinking milk. I drank coffee every day for 30 years but suddenly I hate the smell and taste of it now. I figured out today that Monster Mean Bean in a can goes down pretty good so I got jacked up on that this afternoon and mowed the lawn.

Today is the best I’ve felt in a week. I’m on a complete liquid diet now and expect that to last a couple of months. I need to stay in the neighborhood of 2000 calories to maintain my weight. That’s around 6 Ensures per day. Now that I’m back on milk, I can use Carnation Breakfast mix which I like.

Tomorrow is Tuesday which brings another round of back to back chemo and radiation. After tomorrow I’ll only have 3 more of those back to back days left. My last chemo is on Monday July 29th. I’ll be so glad to get that part behind me although I’ll still have several more rounds of radiation left.