Day 24 - Pain and more pain

Because I hadn't ridden to the hospital on Wednesday, I decided to ride to my first exercise appointment at the Vario Clinic. It was at ECU Joondalup, a ride of around 18kms each way. I estimated it would take about an hour to get there travelling at 20kph - 25kph.

However, even though I wanted to ride slowly, I left later than I wanted to, so I had to ride

at a higher rate, around 31kph. I probably shouldn't have pushed mysef as much because it took around 20 minutes after arriving to recover.

Today's session was a strength testing session to determine what weights I'd be using for my exercise routine. I refilled my water bottle with cold water and set off for the ride home. This time I did ride at 20kph - 25kph pace.

Vicki's dad agreed to take me to hospital and pick me up again. I left around 10.30am because I had an 11.30am appointment in the Solaris Care centre for a massage. This time, it was a standard massage and it was very relaxing.

I had taken some custard and jelly for lunch and ate it in the main hallway of the hospital. It didn't taste very good but at east it was easy to swallow. I ate some watermelon pieces after this. It also didn't taste very good but it did give me the option to actuallly bite into something, which was good.

I had a meeting with my speech therapist following lunch, and this session was ok. My speech therapist confirmed that I needed to start doing mouth, tongue and throat exercises once I was unable to swallow normally. My swalling function could return after treatment, but keeping the muscles that drive that action is important to recover the ability to eat as soon as possible after treatment finished, otherwise I'd have to learn to eat again.

At this time, I am still eating (just), so I'm not having to use all the exercises just yet, but I have the feeling it won't be long.

The pan and soreness got gradually worse over the course of the day. I had run out of Lignocaine, so we found a Doctor and she agreed to write up another scrip. Before leaving the hospital, we submitted the Lignocaine script and said we'd pick it up the next day (waiting times can be around 1 and a half hours, so we decided we'd head home). This meant that I'd have to use the other medicines to try to control the pain. Unfortunately, I forgot that the hospital Pharmacy opens on weekday, so I had to wait until Monday to pick it up.

I did nothing when I got home, I couldn't. I hadn't eaten anything all day, but didn't feel hungry at all. I could feel the weakness in my body, but simply couldn't bring myself to eat or drink anything substantial. Instead, I laid down, got a couple of hours sleep on the lounge, then work up and went to bed, after I'd completed my normal hygiene routine. Interestingly, this includes washing my mouth with salty water, something I don't think I've every done previously (until the treatment started).

It didn't work.