Monday, November 17th Update

I was hoping to be all healed up by now, eating regular food, PEG tube all gone and healed, feeling strong and able to do all the things I do with the energy I'm used to doing them with.

The truth is that this is going to take a lot longer than I thought.

My tonsil is still raw and extremely painful, an open sore that is still sloughing off, nearly two months after the last radiation treatment. Any kind of citrus, tomato, salt, hot sauce (OUCH!), hot, cold or grainy food simply is much too painful to eat.

I still have almost no saliva, and within about a minute without a dash of water or tea, my entire mouth and tongue simply dry up. I know it's kind of hard to imagine, but when it happens, it is extremely uncomfortable and even painful. Chewing sugarless gum helps, but this presents another weird side effect.

I stopped sugar foods some time ago, due to the extremely sensitive nature of my teeth, but even sugarless gum is giving me trouble! I don't understand it, but it makes my teeth hurt just like sugar does. The only way I can chew even sugarless gum is with a healthy dose of Ibuprofen ahead of time!

My PEG tube that I still use for feeding more than half of my daily intake is becoming infected. I keep it very clean, but the slight leakage keeps introducing small amounts of stomach acid to the raw skin, making healing almost impossible. The result is another site where pain is almost constantly present.

SO, now I have more pain than I did when I was just finished with my treatment! Perhaps it is just the natural progression of this particular treatment process, I don't know. I have heard it said that 'it is always darkest, just before the dawn' and maybe this best describes what's happening.

All I know is that I will be glad when it is all over, and I can function normally and pain free! My energy level is better, but still only about 75 to 80% of normal. I am looking forward to being back to 100% again sometime soon.