Kristen, Im sorry I always seem to be the one to burst your bubble. Be careful about getting rid of your feeding tube too quickly. Its so much better to have it and not need it than to need it and its not there. Especially if you have an upcoming trip where you are flying. Traveling takes ALOT out of a person!!!! I have traveled quite a bit the last several years and know how hard it is walking miles thru airports, not getting enough to eat or drink and being thrown off my regular routines. Its When talking about someone who recently finished their rads, they are not up to their regular activities and will easily tire. Flying also is very hard on the body! A few times Ive been pretty sick the doctors have asked me if I had been traveling. When I say yes, they ask a bunch more questions. Theres something about airline air that helps to dehydrate passengers. Im sorry I havent felt the best when I hear about these things and I never asked for clarity. The docs have also mentioned being confined in a small area with lots of people from all over the place, someone with a compromised immune system is much more susceptible to picking up all kinds of things, even when they are extra careful and use hand sanitizer often. The docs told me to avoid crowds and any public places as much as possible until my check ups show my blood work coming back with normal numbers which shows my immune system is working normally again. It took me several years until I had normal levels on my blood work. But, my case was very different than most patients. My situation was a complicated one with having OC diagnosed again in each of the next 2 years.

The first time I went to my gastro doc to get my feeding tube removed, he wouldnt take it out. My doc said until I could go 2 months without using it at all to not even consider getting rid of it. To my dismay, the doc was right too. Several months later after I had been doing much better with my eating and didnt depend on the feeding tube for my intake I went back and this time I had it removed. Within the first 2 weeks I dropped at least 10 pounds and quickly realized even though I thought I was doing well enough to get rid of the PEG, my rapid weight loss told me I was not ready to lose that darn tube. How I detested that thing too!!! Now Im dependent on having a feeding tube for the rest of my life and after everything Ive been thru, having a feeding tube is no big deal to me anymore. Its just another tool to make my life a little easier to take in everything thats needed to get a balanced diet each day.

Please be very, very careful about traveling when you have just recently finished your rads!!! Thinking back to when I was 2 months post rads, I still had a long way to go until I considered myself recovered. At only 2 months post rads, I had just started back to my job on a part time basis. I remember how exhausted I was the first few weeks back and that was just working part time. Everything seemed to wear me out, just talking to my co-workers felt like I had run a marathon. I really struggled thru my rads almost right from the start and the recovery phase seemed to be one long phase of day after day of not feeling the best and not noticing much progress. You seemed to do much better than I did with your rads, with your recovery so far too. I hope you continue to make steady improvements and are back to as close to your regular life as you can get very soon. We can all never recover as quickly as what we all think we should. Time seems to run much slower during the recovery phase.

Keep up the good work with your recovery!!! It sounds to me like you really are doing an excellent job taking care of yourself and everything else during your rads and recovery phases.


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