Update on treatments, etc, and a couple of questions.

Almost 4 weeks into the radiation, and for some reason, luckily, other than the old dry mouth and some mucositis, and hair falling out on the right side of my neck, tightness of the neck muscles, and a sore shoulder still from the surgery, no major side effects. Yet. Still getting the feeling of pressure around my neck, but each day its' less and less, so hoping in a few weeks that will be done with. Massaging and stretching my neck muscles a little each day trying to work this out. Anyone have any suggestions? A couple of times I've been in bed and tried to adjust my t-shirt thinking it is binding around my neck, then realized I wasn't wearing a t-shirt. I hate when that happens.

Did start out doing Cisplatin for chemo, but after 3 rounds had to quit, would get ringing in the ears from just slight to "baby that was a real attention getter". Oncologist had thought the chemo was strictly optional this time because of the small amount of tumor involvement, cut of the chemo post haste. Also asked if I had anything like the tingly nerves in the legs when I moved my head (dont' remember the name he used, but we know what he's talking about). Seemed aggravated when I told him yes, since last Christmas from the first go around with all this. I get the feeling he definately would not have started chemo again if he had known that previously.

Also, he's decided that probably I only need about 5300GY instead of the 6000, again because of the small amount of tumor involvement.

So, feeling pretty positive at this point. For some reason, I have this feeling deep down that this will be the last I've heard of this, other than check ups, etc. I really didn't feel this way after the first go around, like I was fully expecting the cancer to reappear someplace. I know if it does reappear again, I'll be totally devestated but also have the feeling it will be so far metasticised that my goose will be cooked anyway there won't be much to do except get on with it.

My poor wife has been handling all this very well, from having to deal with visa nonsense to be with me in H.K. for treatment, to just dealing with me. She gets angry because I don't eat big meals, and has a hard time understanding the hassle of the dry mouth part, but I know it's because she cares that she hollers at me about it. When we started the process for getting married everything was ok, but during the 4 weeks it took for the marriage bureau to get the paperwork done and issue the certificates, things kind of went to heck and I wound up with this recurrence. I give her a lot of credit for sticking with me.

Thankfully, will be done with this in a week and a half, and can get back home to finsh moving into the new apartment and get settled again. If there's no major issues, planning to get back to work in mid June for half days. Probably the worse thing for me is the sitting around most of the day, or trying to keep myself occupied. With 2 a day treatments, the lull time between the two is the toughest. Only so much walking around Hong Kong one can do, and with a shot immune system, and SARS scare here on top of that, a lot of wanderingt around isn't all that smart to begin with. Besides, then one starts to impulse buy (yes, retail therapy) and does one really need a Gucci PDA cover? Even if it is copy Gucci?

My mental state this time has gone from real high to real low, corrsponding with my energy level. I know it's still another several months of recovery, using the rule of one month for every week of radiatin, I wasn't due to really get over the first time until June or July, and her it is May and I've done another 6 weeks of treatment. It will be December, if I'm lucky, before the strangeness gets done with. From my last experience, I now know I need to pace myself, rest before I get tired, and try and keep my mental attitude in proper mode.

Question for the more athletic folks here. One of the unfortunate side affects of all this is I've lost the beer gut and the love handles, I kind of look like the folks that have managed to stay to the end of "Survivor" kind of droopy fleshed, not a heck of a lot of muscle tone, etc. The new task will be also to try and get back in shape, which to me is a tricky proposition since the idea is to put on weight and get some decent excersize, but not so much that you burn all the calories you take in, which is limited because I suppose for a while at least I'm still going to not be able to eat a whole lot because of the dry mouth etc. Any good suggestions, thoughts or book suggestions? Not on a PEG tube, and my normal diet consists mostly of Cantonese food, (lots of veggies, lean meat, soup, rice or noodles) or Korean food. Ensure isn't available normally, as well as most "western" foods. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks for your support everyone, I guess today I'm in a good mood, weather is nice and will be heading out for more "retail therapy" later, as well as a search for dinner. For those who are just going into treatment that read this, you are going to have down days, up days, but at the end of it all it does get better, and I think recovery is as much mental as physical. Dont' give up.
Bob