Hi Geri,

Your journey to this point brings back so much...the exhausting list of appointments and requirements just to get to the treatment stage. And so much is up to the caregiver....I had no idea.

Bill had a fairly easy go of it for about 2.5 weeks into treatment and he was receiving 2-a-day rads. He drove himself (at his insistence) for all of that except for chemo Thursdays that lasted from 9 in the morning starting with radiation then chemo from 10 to 4...then another rad treatment. Those days were hard but not impossible with the two of us making it work. I would go get Bill lunch and he would eat while in the infusion room. I was lucky because I had family in town that would prepare dinner.

Week three saw him in too much pain to eat and from that point on, totally on peg feedings. I just carried cans and water to feed him on chemo days. I charted each can and each ounce of water to make sure he was getting good calories and fluids, I also watched a bottle of Gatorade Rain I placed beside his chair to see that he was swallowing all of it by the end of the day. Also hard but not impossible. I also started driving to appointments at the three week mark.

Bill did have hair thinning but did not lose all of his beautiful head of silver white hair. He did not have much nausea at all...only a little after the AM feedings.

He faired pretty well thru treatment until the last week. He started running a temperature and being informed by the docs that this was emergent, we went to the ER. Four days in the hospital with an unknown infection and low white counts and he was out...finished treatment and was starting to eat by the second week after the last radiation. Three weeks after treatment he was eating totally by mouth.

So you will get thru this with maybe a few bumps and days when you are really down. It will end though and then you can work toward the healing and new normal.

Good luck and hugs,

Deb