'Till now my mantra's pretty much been, "All in all I feel pretty good, it's just that my Tongue hurts ALL THE TIME." Well, that still holds, except for the "I feel pretty good" part. I can't say that I feel all that bad, but there's no doubt about it, I have to say the tongue thing is pretty overwhelming. I'm not even gonna try to explain it, so you'll just have to take my word on it. I think I might have mentioned that I'd "cried Uncle" on Wednesday to the Radiation Oncoligist, Dr. Makishi (well first I whined to Janice, the Radiation Nurse, who's been very understanding and a big help so far), and they came up with a whole new approach.
No more Oxycodone, they put me on a PATCH (Fentanyl) which by the way, I had to add a second one on the second day) and switched me back to the liquid Vicodin as a supplement to the patch. I got a renewed RX for the MAGIC MOUTHWASH too, and although similar this one I "swish & swallow" as opposed to "swish & spit" as I was on the previous one. Sadly, there's still not much relief, and I'll just have to hope for a new plan next week.
I took advantage of Marcia Seabern being my Driver on Thursday and rode back to Lahaina with her, knowing that Tom Warren was Driving on Friday, and could just pick me up before leaving Lahaina. As it turned out, we had quite a bit of weather stirring up, with a storm blowing in from the South East, bringing 40+ MPH winds, high surf and the promise of much rain.
The photo above is taken right in front of my home in Lahaina, looking North towards Kaanapali and no, we don't normally have boats in that close to shore. And, it's not an optical illusion, she's stuck on the reef, about 25 feet from the sea wall in front of Lahaina Roads. I've no idea if they got her off or not, as high tide was at about 8:00pm that evening, and there wasn't time to check in the morning.
As expected it was pouring rain by the time Tom came to pick me up. It let up a little for our drive over the Pali, but by the time we got to the Clinic, it was dumping in horizontal sheets. It was nice to have the half way mark finally met, but it sure doesn't look promising for the remaining 17 treatments!! I had originally thought I might return to Lahaina again with Tom, but between the weather and a less than mild experience with Thursday's chemo (I'd evidently not hydrated enough that morning and my veins were "flat"), I decided not too. Marny had two unsuccessful tries at inserting the shunt, and finally called in Annette who managed to be successful on the third, however my right hand still aches a bit. AND the biggest factor is not only is the tongue/throat issue debilitating, the outside skin on my neck and cheeks has gotten REALLY irritated (Oh boy, another good sign that the treatments are "working!"), I mean REALLY. I'll spare you the gory details, but it's a bit more than just red, tender and pealing skin. OUCH. So, lots of lotion, no more talking, and just dealing with being generally miserable.
There, I've said it. Every one's still welcome to call, and I do enjoy and look forward to the occasional phone message, but I'm sorry Folks, it's just time to stop talking for awhile. I'll try to be more diligent with the Blog, but for now, I need to do everything in my power to minimize the aggravation to mouth, mind and my skin.
When one door of Happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door, that we do not see the other one which has opened for us. - Helen Keller
so we let our fingers do the talking....thank God for email/blogs... prayin' for you Ron and really sorry you have to go thru this.
ReplyDeleteJeremiah 29:11-13
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