Thanks for the thoughts. Had a talk with my wife a couple nights ago, basically told her yeah, I understand how she feels about wishing things would get back to normal and such. She's also going through a bit of a cultural thing, all her friends back in China have families, a couple of houses, successful and such and again we're living a bit day to day. Don't know if any of you have caught the new TV sitcom "Fresh Off the Boat," but the wife in the sitcom could be my wife, easy. Anyway, told her yeah, it's OK to feel bad, but NOT OK to make me feel like Sh**t about it.Last night my wife seemed more apologetic, realized to not take it out on me, see how long that lasts before another meltdown. We have mutual friends at work (she was working as my assistant in the company we work at, we really are one of those unusual couples that can work closely together) she may have talked to them about it and got a verbal butt kicking from them also. Have appointments set up with nutritionist next week, later medical oncologist, the ENT at UCLA, and soon hopefully a speech pathologist.
And what didn't help matters was the swallow study on Tuesday. Not sure what I expected, maybe pass with flying colors and be told it was OK to go out and eat whatever, but that wasn't the case. Started out with a small amount of thin barium liquid, did OK. Then about a tablespoon, doc wanted me to drink all at once, did better with that, I guess good enough to graduate to a paper cup. I guess doc wanted me to be able to drink the paper cup's worth, sort of tilt up and glug, glug, glug. That wasn't going to happen for sure. Or maybe I was trying to rush it, but didn't work out. Don't think I aspirated anything, but it didn't feel right. Doc showed me the maneuver to help keep the liquid from going down the wrong pipe, not sure what it's called, it did help. Anyway, we stopped there, he's referring me to yet another ENT at UCLA, this one specializes in swallowing disorders. Ok to drink thin liquids, in the meantime see this other ENT and see what he says.
We were a bit disappointment, but I'm like this is the same as maybe having your leg amputated and getting a prosthetic leg, and having to learn to walk all over again. Basically an artificial tongue, need to learn how to eat with it all over again.
And so it goes, stamina is still not there, about 40% maybe. Frustrating, I was pretty active for my age before this, cycling maybe 70 miles a week, etc. Not been on a bike since the surgery. Have been making sure I walk at least a mile a day, unlike the rest of the country we're experiencing temps in the high 70's low 80's. Getting out side is imperative around here.
And so it goes. Doc has set my tentative back to work date mid June, I thought I could push it up to mid April. Not so sure about that now, see how it goes though.
