Hi Jack,
There are a few tricks we learned. First I hope you got a disabled placard from the DMV. Secondly ALWAYS tell the pharmarcy, lab, etc. that Eric has a compromised immune system and needs to get the hell out of there ASAP. They will almost always move you to the head of the line. My loving wife watched me go through many of the same things you are and she ended up in therapy for a while. Venting and righteous anger are a healthy thing and this site is a perfect place to do it. Caregiving is tougher than being the patient sometimes. About the patch. I used a Duragesic patch. They always start at 25 mg and can go as high as 300 mg. If he is taking a lot of supplemental meds for pain control than he needs to have the patch strength increased. It also takes about a day for the patch to come to full strength. It worked very well for me and the withdrawal after being on it for months was manageable. I am sure that I too "sugarcoated" my food intake habits and my wife would chime in with the truth which caused some tension but the truth always rises to the surface. I beleive it was Walt Whitman that said "You have to judge a man by his intentions, not by his actions".
Things are going to get worse so you need to mentally prepare for that. Having lived through it -and at times I actually had my doubts, I realized just how tough and resilient the human body is. Radiation kicked my ass! I basically lived on Carnation Instant Breakfast and milkshakes for months. I am surprised how slow the infusion unit is at rehydrating Eric - that's about as slow as if you just went to the local emergency room. At Kaiser infusion they would pump in a liter in a little over 30-40 minutes. I would immediately feel better. We only had to drive 60 miles RT but it brought back memories of times when I was just too tired and sick to talk (and as treatment went on -too burned and blistered to talk) and couldn't get comfortable no matter what I did. Fortunately, I had several other drivers to take some pressure off of my wife. (also complicating things was she thought that the time in the car would be a great time to "talk about things"). I had an advice nurse that coordinated all of my requests with the doctor. My primary doctor was the oncologist who prescribed all of my meds. They always took care of any problems within the same day and it worked really well. The opiates can sometimes cause nausea in the beginning but that is usually only for a day or two while his body adjusts. I remember throwing up so much that my teeth were polished like glass from the stomach acid. Practically anything could cause me to vomit. Antacids help and he might try Pepcid. I did have some fair days however and look forward to those. Constipation was another huge problem. I lost more weight, had more dehydration problems and vomiting from that than anything else. It's like you have to manage all of your body functions manually and try to find the right balance of medications to do it. I don't believe there is any such thing as an efficacious non narcotic pain killer. Oh, and I would routinely vomit after using the pink magic (don't swallow it, by the way, unless instructed to) then I would have about 10-15 minutes to chug something down. If you swallow it it messes up your gag reflex.
I am 130 days post treatment today and lived through it. No PEG tube, lost 60 lbs (about 1/3 of me!) but I am going to restauants with friends (can eat almost anything), church, AA, went to the county fair with my wife. Am gaining a couple of pounds a week. Playing the bass again and starting to really feel like I am rejoining the human race. Hang in there -you'll get there.