Chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and side effects
| original date | 2017-10-07 13:53 utc |
|---|---|
| republished | 2024-06-06 01:11 utc |
| topics | health; orig. on PostHope |
| note | This post was originally published at PostHope, where it’s still available, along with several public comments. |
Several people have asked me whether I’ve been sugar-coating my posts here — or at least choosing to write about only the good, rather than the bad or the ugly.
I will admit that, especially in the early days, things weren’t that great: I suffered from nausea and fatigue (mostly from the chemotherapy, I think) and pain (from my j‑tube surgery and the enflamed esophagus). These weren’t terrible, however, and I’d been led to expect that the effects of both the chemotherapy and the radiation therapy were cumulative over time — that is, that they would generally get worse over each week of my therapies. And so, I didn’t really report on those early days, both because there were other things to write about and also because I wanted to be able to write “I feel awful” posts later on, when I really expected to feel much more awfuller.
In fact, with the exception of fatigue, everything has been improving over the last few weeks. The esophagus is probably even more inflamed than it was, but it bothers me less because the tumor is taking up much less space: I can eat (and am eating!) many more foods than I could a month ago, and in greater quantity (yea!!). I have no nausea. I have little pain around the j‑tube.
And this is apparently not unusual. The nurses I’ve spoken with about this report that, though the “it just gets worse and worse until several weeks after you’ve finished treatment” scenario does often play out, it’s more common for symptoms and side-effects to ease — as I’ve experienced. Again, more for me to be grateful for!
I finished my chemotherapy on Monday, and have definitely been feeling more tired this week than ever. But I also feel more myself, more healthy. I’m tremendously happy that I can eat so much more now. I’m still “feeding” almost 1,500 calories each day via the j‑tube, but I’m also eating nearly that amount in real food — and regaining an average of something like a half-pound each day. (And I’m trying to keep active enough that all the excess doesn’t end up in my midriff; we’ll see how that goes!) I’m still about 10 pounds under my preferred weight, but I’m now at nearly the same amount over my nadir weight of September 1st. Half way!
And I have only one more radiation therapy appointment, this coming Monday. Once I’m through that, inflammation can begin to subside, and my body can concentrate solely on rebuilding or replacing the millions (billions?) of cells that the chemotherapy and the radiation have injured or killed.
Next post: mobile feeding, and a conference in Montréal