I’m about a 1/3 through with radiation, I guess that’s really treatment 11/12 is when that turnover happens. The soreness in my mouth has passed, now I just feel the skin that is in there. Pretty much like drinking/eating something too hot and burning your mouth, except mine was done with radiation. Slight soreness when doing a wide mouth exercise, but it’s a good sore, let’s me know I’m doing something.

Chemo went well again, ended up having a good day afterward, went and did some shotguns, ate a huge ass burrito when we were done. I think the rest of the day after chemo are good days mainly because of the steroid they shoot you up with first, gives you a good few hour burst.

I noticed, while getting chemo, the majority of the people in there are older, 60+. Usually, from my vast amount of treatments, the only time I’ve seen younger people in there are when they’re there with the person getting chemo. In a way it’s depressing. Some of the people seem to look ok, but then there are others, who have just gone through so much ( as I can imagine ) they just look horrible, yet persevere they do, in a way it gives hope.

Some small hope for me, the nurse said my past week is pretty indicative of how, at least for chemo, my remaining weeks should be. So, if that just means I’m tired, I’ll consider myself lucky. I’m able to control the nausea and upset stomach feeling throughout the week, and by Tuesday I can feel myself getting better, and Thursday is a pretty good day. Only thing that marred this past Wednesday and Thursday was a low grade headache from my severely oversized attached head.

Part of Speech is also going in every two weeks during treatment and swallowing in front of the person you’re working with. It’s very awkward, because swallowing is pretty much an involuntary action, in so much as you think about swallowing, but the mechanics behind it are all automatic.

So it’s very weird when you’re given different kinds of food and told to swallow…it’s just weird man, just weird.

From that point forward I can’t fall asleep. I lie in bed swapping from being on my left side, to my back to my right side. I can’t exactly be on my stomach with the feeding tube sticking out. I don’t exactly drift, I know I’m awake, I’m usually not thinking of anything, but I just can’t find it in me to fall asleep again.

I should probably get up and motor around a little bit and see if I get tired again, and that’s probably what I’ll do. I did take a nap the other day, but I’ve had days where I’ve purposefully not taken a nap to see if I could sleep through the night, only not to be able to.

If I could manage to stay awake until midnight or 1 o’clock it wouldn’t be so bad, I think, only thing is I can’t seem to stay awake that long.

So, I can’t shit and I can’t sleep. Here shortly I won’t be able to shave, although they’ve told me to use an electric, which I hate using. At least I’ll be able to shower!

Oh yeah, I’ve also developed small burn/sores by my back molars, I haven’t stuck a fingernail in there to see if I can pull the skin off, much like if you were to eat something too hot.

Got a core biopsy done a few days ago, got the results back, it’s positive for certain type of HPV markers. I think that’s a good thing, I won’t know for sure until I meet with my oncologist again on Tuesday for him to help explain it, because doctor google isn’t working out too well.

Also had blood work done, in prep for chemo on Friday, then totally forgot that I had a follow-up appointment with a nurse at the chemo oncologist office to go over how I feel ( with my hands ). So I ended up just talking with her via the phone, which I think is the extent of what we’d normally have done, minus maybe getting my weight and blood pressure taken, yet again. So, I’ll make sure to remember to go see that person again next Wednesday when I do it all over again.

Saliva is still thick, but I still have taste, just had a couple of brownie bites and it was definitely chocolatey.

Oh yeah, the guy I met today ( last day was today ), said he got addicted to his feeding tube, that still scares me, that I’ll be dependent on this fuggin’ thing, but we’ll have to see, treatment is different for everyone, I might not need to use it ( too much ).

Overall, semi-happy about the whole STD thing, that makes chances of survival way up there, compared to not, not that I didn’t plan to not survive ( read that one fast enough, I think I wrote it the way I wanted )

The node on my neck feels super huge, like the size of my hand huge, but on the chart they have they’ve got it marked down as 1cm..so I have no idea what the F is on the side of my neck, probably an emerging Kuato or something.

One of the things they said would happen is taste changes and phlegm changes. My phlegm has gotten a bit thicker, I notice it quite a bit when I think about it, also when brushing my teeth, the frothy crest juices from brushing my teeth don’t run forth from my mouth, they sort of cling to the sides of the sink like Spiderman. Also, onions, holy hand grenades, who the heck made onions so poignant. I took a wiff of some last night and about lost it, and I had a Chipotle burrito today ( not my normal fajita type b/c of the onions in that ) where I must have gotten some cross contamination and a very bright and rich onion filled my mouth, but not in a really good way.

Change, it is a comin’.

I’m still a bit tired, I think I slept ok last night, had to wake up around 3am to use the facilities, but even with that doing some work around the house, preparing for new windows, got me sweaty and tired again to the point where I’d like to take a nap, but I’m going to push through and hopefully get another good nights sleep.

Anyway, I’m getting to bed and getting some sleep in until about 1 or 2am, then I tend to wake up and flail around for the next few hours getting, maybe half hour to 45 minute bouts in there before trying to find another comfortable position.

So, I’m feeling pretty worn down, and this queasy stomach doesn’t lend itself well to wanting to eat anything, even though I can feel myself being hungry.

Tomorrow is day 6.

The nodule on my neck is much larger, I think it’s just inflamed from the core biopsy. It doesn’t hurt any more/less so I’m not too worried about it, I’m sure it’ll go down.

Picked up some extra things today based off of Amy reading, as well as what some of the nurses have said. Taking a Vitamin D supplement, 5000mg. Also going to start taking turmeric with some type of cummin. Supposedly shown to help shrink tumors and causes tumors to die.

That and I’ve felt tired, not the complete day, just more than most, it may or may not have had something to do with being up until 2am or so and waking up at 9am, so may not be any different than any other time. Likewise, stomach has been a little tumbly, acidy, etc, but I think that may just be more due to a shitty food intake, because I’ve been told to eat anything I want. Although, due to low hemoglobin, I decided on a nice big steak today, or at least a very tasty one ( filet of course )

And then I sat there, and sat there. I finally got up a little past 8 and said I have a pretty tight schedule today, my appointment … you know to get blasted by radiation, was for 7:45. Only to be informed that it was 8:15, to which I said it sure would have been nice to be told that my schedule had been changed, you know since you saw me come in and sign in and sit down at 7:30.

The problem is one about logistics. A seven year old needs to get to school. I need to have radiation, then at 9 be at the hospital in order to get prep’d for a core biopsy of my neck, but I can’t drive afterward. And I don’t really feel like leaving my jeep there, there may be rules about leaving it there overnight, I’m not sure, then after my surgery, have enough time for lunch at around 12:15pm, because I haven’t had anything to eat since 9pm the night before, then I get to go and sit for a couple of hours for my first round of poison ( it’s the green one ).

So, despite an initial bad start for the day, radiation went fine, I’m still doing well, which I think is to be expected.

My chemo, so far, I’m about 4 hours post chemo, it is going pretty well so far, like any other day for the most part. The nurse there said she’s had a couple of patients where it hadn’t effected them. I’m hoping for the same.

Here’s some great news, while reading some of the side-effects for the chemo, coming in at number 5! Death! Granted, they were in alphabetical order, so not in order of what is mostly to least likely. But who knows, there’s still Saturday and/or Sunday, so I may have a Day 4 part 2, etc.

Oh yeah, also, my bodily net worth has gone up, b/c what’s in the chemo treatment … platinum … that’s right, I’m better than that crap silver or gold, I have platinum running through my veins.

My big day is tomorrow, radiation early, then I have a core biopsy on the mass in my neck, so I get cut open. Then I have chemo later in the day. So we’ll see how I do after that and this weekend.

Go me!

Got strapped in, almost snapped a picture of the device that they’re using on me, maybe I’ll get one later, was in for maybe seven minutes, then back out and was on my way.

Nurse told me to go ahead and eat anything I wanted, which I have no problem doing! Just hoping it doesn’t get to be too bad later on down the stretch.

Found out that after the last FNA that turned up negative results, the doctors want to go in and take a core biopsy of my lymph node, which is what I think they should have done already, and what I thought they were going to do on April 30th instead of another FNA, but whatever. So, I’ll get a small incision on my neck, they’ll take out a small bit of my enlarged lymph node and send it off for further testing. With more material to test on they can run more tests to try to find out exactly what it is I have, besides just squamous cell.