Mike finished chemo and rt one week ago today. Burns are healing nicely, fatigue is always there but maybe a tiny bit less each day, and today he actually ate some cream of wheat and tapioca pudding! (still using the peg for primary nutrition of course). I'm pretty stunned at this point....he has a prescription for pain and hasn't needed it. He says it's more discomfort than pain and believe me I'm not complaining about this but having read through lots of posts here, isn't this unusual? I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop! Thanks for any comments.

Superman!!

c'mon David, give me a small break here...I'm seriously looking around for the kryptonite. He has needed far more in the way of anxiety meds (zoloft and ativan). We still have most of the pain rx for the peg tube surgery and all of the rx they wrote for pain in RT. I think the most pain killer he used was after his teeth extractions pre - RT and chemo. We're both waiting for the onset of some horrible symptoms?

He may be one of the lucky ones who just doesn't have a lot of side effects from the Tx -- Reactions to it are spread out quite a bit, kind of like the Bell Curve and Mike seems to be on the good end of that!

For example, I was able to drive myself to all my nukery (No chemo), although a friend drove me the last week and I let him -- Others I know had to have someone drive them after the first week or so -- Still others managed to continue to work throughout the entire process (I couldn't have managed that!)

I didn't have pain or take pain meds, rather a lot of lassitude, coupled with sleeplessness and a general feeling of discomfort not unlike depression. I like to read, but couldn't do it -- Just lie on couch waiting for bed time and lie in bed waiting to get up and lie on couch. It was a major accomplishment for me to finally be able to walk around the block!

When I did start reading again (Light fiction), I didn't recall which books I read -- I will find a 'new' book at library, be reading it and have deja vu hints throughout as if I had seen the movie or something; checking the copyright dates showed that it would have been on the New Titles shelf in library when I was recovering, so likely I had read it already but couldn't recall it.

ok...that's the kind of comment I was looking for. That sounds very much like what's going on here. Mike didn't drive himself for any of this...I did the driving...mostly because he was taking Ativan to cope with the mask and later Zoloft for depression and chemo days he got Benadryl. The drive was 75 miles one way and I figured he'd fall asleep somewhere. He still doesn't trust himself to drive just from the fatigue. Some days a shower takes every bit of energy he has. We have both been surprised by the lack of pain...sure, the burns hurt, and yes, the throat was blistered and sore but nothing like we were expecting (Thank God or whatever higher power is watching over us!) One quirky thing is that he had cataract surgery a couple years ago and had always had some blurry/floater thing going on and now it's completely gone. Weird, huh? We see the surgeon next....here's to having some good luck there too.

I did all of my own driving for rads and chemo and after rad seed implants I drove myself to all follow up appointments. They thought I had someone driving me and I agreed. Didn't take pain pills much until now when I really am in pain and I sure can take pain. This is ridiculous tho. Let him do what he can because he might be a hard head like yours truly.

oh, he's a hard head alright....stubborn as they come. Tho I don't think the stubborness has much to do with this....if he were just being stubborn about it I could tell. (Takes one to know one, right?) He's mystified a bit too that he hasn't needed the pain meds. And he would tell you that I'm a nag...says he'll never get to go to a doctor without me again (and he may just be right about that since it slipped his mind to tell me the ENT saw a growth on his tongue).

It does look like he is out if the tunnel. Be glad he is one of the lucky ones!! I also only took a only a small fraction of the oxycodone/morphine that I was given (great for headaches now!) Instead I used viscous lidocaine to keep eating (well drinking coffee anyway) troughout the treatment.

M

Glad you still have your sense of humor Markus. LOL

Superman with issues?