Day 17 - Try a New Drug

I woke around 5.30 and realised the Difflam had, expectedly, worn off, so I had some more. It is meant to be washed around your mouth and gargled, which is what I do. My throat goes numb immediately, but I waited around 20 minutes to have breakfast to give it time to really work. I had porridge and an Up N Go and my tongue didn't bother me at all.

I did a bit of work until I heard the sprinklers go on at 6am. I generally check that the sprinklers are working ok from time to time. In this case, I was particular interested in making sure the water was getting to the drip system I'd installed with the new rose garden I'd put in for Vicki's birthday. They generally do work ok, but the last two on the line often need adjusting. I'll figure out what to do to avoid this problem one day.

Once inside, I completed my M&T Routine, face and neck hygiene routine and then sat down to do some more work for the morning, until I needed to leave to go to the hospital around 2.30pm.

The Difflam worked until around 11.30am. Much longer that I imagined it would and what the label on the bottle says. Pleased. My lips were still hurting though, so I took some Panadol and Nurefin, which eventually eased the pain a little.

I made chicken and salad with Italian dressing for lunch and followed this up with a cup of tea. The cup of tea didn't go down too well. I was told by a couple of cancer survivors and the nursing staff that it is not uncommon to not be able to eat spicy food, but I still can at the moment, so I tend to add spicy sauces of some kind to my food for two reasons. One, sauces help me digest the food, given the saliva in my mouth is drying up and two, I am continually testing how my taste is changing as the treatment progresses.

After lunch I rinsed my mouth with the non-salty water and brushed my teeth.

Each week the chemotherapy trial nurse and the Radiation Oncologist ask me a series of questions. They are the same questions and are designed to record the impact of side effects from the treatment on my life. Over time, a picture emerges of the increasing impact and this is then compared to other patients in the trial and those not in the trial to see if there are any variables that may improve outcomes.

By me testing my taste and various other side effects, I reckon I can give creditable answers in response.

I arrived at 3.10 and went straight to the radiotherapy day centre. It was very busy, much busier than normal. There were no spare chairs in the waiting area so I walked back down the corridor to an empty waiting area and sat there for a few minutes. Each treatment machine has its own waiting area nearby. The waiting room I sat in was not operating this particular day so there were plenty of chairs. I knew I would only need to wait a short while before the other waiting room would vacate as patients were treated and then left. Once I had shifted to my normal waiting room, I only had to wait a very short time before I was called in.

The treatment itself takes around 15 minutes, from walking in, lying on the machine, having the mask clipped into place and the radiation being applied, mask removed and leaving. I was out of there in about that time.

Each week I see a radiotherapy nurse who asks a series of questions to ascertain my general health and wellbeing with respect to side effects expected to have an impact. They also recheck my weight and my mouth. I completed this and once again the nurse was surprised that I wasn't impacted quite as much as their other patients. I'm not counting my chickens just yet, but I am pleased.

I then had to go upstairs to the clinic for my weekly Medical Oncologist appointment. First though, I had to check my weight. The Medical Oncologist was already waiting for me so I got to walk straight into the appointment.

I explained that the headaches and sore throat stopped immediately, and I felt fine a couple of days later, after ceasing to take the antibiotic medicine previously prescribed. The skin rash was still there but was much lighter in colour due to my salt solution and topical antibiotic ointment treatment. I was prescribed a different antibiotic drug to counter the rash with the instruction to cease using it if the headaches and sore throat came back.

I left and arrived home around 5.30pm. Vicki and our son had gone to the Scorchers Big Bash Final at the WACA Ground, so I made Gnocchi for our daughter and I. It was out of a packet and was terrible. Neither of us finished our plates. I compensated by having a bigger bowl of ice cream, but it too is losing its taste. Interestingly, milk and milk based products still taste the same, and if cold, are actually quite refreshing. I have started to drink flavoured milk products as a result. I guess I need to start buying full cream ice cream now. Not sure if this will work but I can have a connoisseur ice cream and it tastes fine.

My favourite western movie is Lonesome Dove. We bought it years ago in VHS format, but we don't have a VHS player to play it on (who does these days). I've asked around to see if we can get a DVD but they have discontinued it. In any case, I found the entire show (it's really long) on YouTube movies. Awesome. So I've been watching it each night and did again tonight. I've still got a bit to go. I like it because I heard it is based on the real life friendship of two texas rangers who set up a ranch in a small town, which in the movie is called Lonesome Dove. And because it doesn't sugar coat life as many westerns do. It seems to me to be fairly period specific, which I found refreshing. If you haven't seen it, check it out on YouTube. It stars Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duval. It doesn't follow the historical record of the two men, but it does go reasonably close in parts.

At about this time, I noticed my throat was getting sore again. However, this was different to previously. It was in a different place. I had taken once of the replacement antibiotic tablets but discounted this being the cause as it had occurred a bit quick. I'll continue to monitor as it is a common side effect of radiotherapy and the main reason patients stop eating (and therefore experience unhealthy weight loss).

I went to bed around 11.30pm after setting my alarm for 4.30am the next morning, as I was riding for my long day at hospital, and after completing my M&T Routine and face and neck hygiene routine.