Now its actually me, not my wife.

One thing I wanted to share as I have amused myself lately is my new party line to friends and family. Recall I am 32. We all deal with a similar thing in that we have many concerned friends, family and co-workers and I find myself constantly reassuring them everything is going to be just fine.

My new line is that "unfortunately, most of us at some point in our lives have to deal with a health crisis. sometimes its 40, sometimes its 80. I'm ust getting mine out of the way early"

Warren,

Regarding your question about how quickly you might lose taste and experience fatigue -- as you know, there's a range of responses among different patients, but since I was also in my 30's at the time and otherwise in good health, I thought I'd weigh in.

I had radiation without chemo (it sounds like that's what you're having as well). The first 2 weeks or so went pretty well -- by the end of the second week I had slight amounts of change in taste sensations, but not much in terms of real mouth pain. What I remember about fatigue at that stage was this: I had a chance to play in two different golf outings on the same day, and I was fine for the first 18 holes but didn't have enough strength to play the second 18 (and I was angry at myself for not being able to push through it)! It was around the third week when my taste buds got noticeably worse, and greater levels of pain and fatigue set in. The effects that, up to that point, had been creeping up on me, suddenly seemed to hit like a hammer.

Take the best advantage of every day that still feels close to normal -- eat as well as you can for as long as you can to try to keep up your strength.

Cathy

As Cathy said...excellent advice...eat as much as you can as long as you can. In about another week or so you will get hit with the taste bud thing. In my case..I wish it were that I 'lost' taste. It was worse. Everything tasted HORRIBLE (really salty in my case and still does). It was like you take a nice piece of apple pie and take the salt shaker...take the lid off...and dump the whole thing on the pie and try and eat it. You just flat can't do it. I'm just getting by nutritionaly with my scandishakes (I can get about 3 of them down a day, wich is about 1800 calories or so). Fatigue should hit you after about 3 weeks or so. Then it may hit like a ton of bricks. Be ready for some serious sleeping (if the Mucus will let you).

You'll see once you really get into this thing, everyday will be a bit different and it will be 'what's if store for me TODAY'.

Deal with it and move on down the road to recovery.

Warren, Great line about "getting your medical issues" out of the way early" With that attitude, you will be able to meet, head on, whatever comes next. By the way, how is your family doing? Amy

Update 1 - 10 treatments down / 20 to go

Update 1 - 10 treatments down / 20 to go

oops, meant to add following to previous post:

In following in Gary's footsteps I've decided to post periodic updates on my progress. Just finished my first 2 weeks and so far only real side effect is the very beginning of a soar throat (started yesterday) and given its the weekend will wait until Monday to ask the nurse for something to deal with it. If anyone has any suggestions for soar throat relief I'm all ears.

Separate and unrelated from the radiation, I've had a nasty case of what I thought was the stomach flu for 10+ days and lost 7 pounds my first 2 weeks of radiation. It turns out I have a bacterial infection called C.Dif which was caused by the 3 rounds of antbiotics I had taken from my surgery and recent wisdom teeth removal. Its been good practice on making sure I ge lots of fluids in me. The end is near on the C.Dif as I'm now taking Flagyl which should take care of it. Digging in for week 3 and will post soon.

Pattif, I'm nearly at your point in treatments, too. My ENT told me to "bulk up" before they began, so I'm eating like a locust! Would you let me know how your rad treatments progress? Frankly, those don't scare me as much as the "few" chemo treatments they plan on doing.

Sharon

just to avoid cufnusion Warren F nd Patti F are essentialy the same. WE are husband/wife and often post forgetting who was logged in. It I Warren who has the easiser of our two endevours of going through cancer treatment while
Patti has to care for me and our 2 daughers, ages 2.5 and 1 through this ordeal.

So I'm (Warren) a bit latein posting my weekly update post. 17 down / 13 to go. So far sideeffects are minimal. Taste is mainly neutal bu can taste some things and noting tastes bad yet. Some sores and a soar throat kicked in about a week go but thye seemed to have healed thmselves. Maybe the excess mucous coats the throat easing the pain. haven't needed any pain meds yet and am eating OK and getting plenty of liquids in me. this weak will get me to 4 down, 2 to go. not sure what to expect for these nxt 2 wks. i have been working this whole tme but getting tired late week and sleepin most of saturdays.
Chad

sharon - for somereal insiration read garyocks updates as wedid chemo/radia with a great attitude and great treatment sucess