Tuesday August 13th was my final radiation treatment and a whole lot changed just over the past weekend. I have heard first hand accounts of the immense changes that take place in the final few weeks from people who have been through the treatment and I have also witnessed it firsthand with some of the people I am taking this journey with. One example happened on my final chemo day (one week before final radiation for me). A fellow fighter was entering his final few days. His final radiation was going to be that wednesday. I saw him the previous Friday and he looked and felt really good. By the time I saw him MOnday it was a complete swing of events. First off, he didn't have the feeding tube put in. His doctor pushed to do it without. And now it was too late to put it it due to the chemo and radiation effects. So from Friday when I saw him, he began getting violently sick and got dehydrated over the weekend because he also couldn't eat since the vomiting was ruining his throat and ability to swallow. We saw him walk in MOnday and he looked horrible. Last we spoke with his wife it was IV every day to try and keep him hydrated. We only saw him one day since but the look we received from his wife was not a positive one by any stretch. That was my first glimpse into what was coming our way.
I met with Dr Margalit on Friday August 9th after radiation. There were now 2 radiation treatments left and that was it. I felt really good. I mean really good. I had energy, no nausea, no pain. Even Dr Margalit said she couldn't believe how well things had progressed. I was her poster child for the final week. Of course she said the next 3-4 weeks can have ups and downs but that's standard Dr Speak for anything right? I left our meeting feeling really good about the next month and future overall. Denise and I were planning on staying in Boston for the weekend based on what we were being told and had seen take place in the final week for peers in the program but I decided I wanted to head home. Denise really did too so it was an easy conversation. Our good friend Dan Martin scooped us up and off we went. That's when some odd things began to occur. I started to notice a lot of phlegm in my throat that didn't want to get out when I coughed. It got worse during the night. On Saturday, it continued to get worse to the point where I ended up getting sick Saturday night. Then again on Sunday night several times. I woke up at 6 monday morning for radiation and spent 20 minutes getting sick again. Now I had to go to radiation, have a mask strapped to my face holding me down unable to move, with the threat of throwing up a distinct concern. They did the radiation quickly as possible thank goodness and although I was sweating like pig during a sausage eating contest the whole time, I made it through.
We met with the team Monday after the radiation to discuss why I got sick all of a sudden and they suggested some tricks with robitussin. Monday night rolled around and that didn't work at all. In fact the robitussin seemed to initiate more sickness. Then Jason suggested one other approach and I took the pill given to me for when the MRI's were done that are supposed to relax me. That worked really well. I was good the rest of Monday, all Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday right up until 4pm. I was hoping to have a couple friends come by to watch a little of the pats preseason since I had been feeling ok, but that went to hell when out of the blue I ran to the bathroom and started getting sick all over again and it was all the mucus and blood from my throat all over again. Back to square one. I hadn't missed a pill in our new regiment so I had no idea what the problem was. It is very frustrating though because along with the sickness comes new pain, blood came out which means I ripped something open again which sets that back days in the healing process as well I would imagine.
As I write this it is Saturday morning and I had a second attack. My throat is on fire, my body aches from throwing up for 20 minutes with nothing much coming out, just a painful painful experience. I don't know how this eventually ends but I sure do hope it ends one way or the other soon. The ups and downs are brutal. Especially when the 'ups' are nothing more than "hey great, I went 4 hours without throwing up, what a great day!"
The good news to report is the Patriots did well from what little I saw, my girls have most of their school stuff ready early which will help as that is just around the corner, my weight is stabliized but I can tell I am losing muscle for sure. It's amazing how quickly it deteriorates just by not doing the normal stuff around the house, forget formal exercise.
I hope everyone else's summer is going really well. Please feel free to send me notes on your vacations. I'd love to hear what you all did for fun.
thanks
mark
You have asked us to tell you the news we have. I have great news. One of the twins started walking last week. My mum came to visit them/us and when I opened the door one of the twins saw her and he walked to her. She stated crying, I started crying and he did the same looking at us. We told him that he did well, and we applauded him to show him that that was a good action (even that we were crying). And why did we cry?.
ReplyDeleteLast summer when the twins were 2 weeks old, my mum got sick. She was alone in the beach when she got sick. She didn´t tell me anything because she didn´t want me to be worry about her and I had enough looking after the twins. But I knew something was wrong and finally she told me. After 1 month in the hospital ( I remember visiting her with my PC full of pics of the twins to show her), the Dr told us she had cancer. She suffered a very hard operation and we didn´t know the final result of the operation. She needed chemo for 6 months. Now she is recovered, she is not 100% like she was in the past but she is 99%, she has some minor secondary effects, but she is recovered. She goes to the Dr every Q for a checking (so she also suffers EoQ like us). But she is fine. And last week she was the happiest person in life looking how my son was walking to her.
Keep fighting Mark and keep posting, please
And please, thank god "the best is yet to come"