Hello everyone
This week I started my new round of treatment. It consists of radiation treatment every weekday for 25 days over 5 weeks and oral chemo treatment daily for the duration of the 5 weeks. So far it has been pretty smooth sailing. Talking to the nurses with both the regular symptoms are what I need to be cautious of. Fatigue, nausea and diarrhea. The fun part is that the radiation treatment and the chemo treatment may both result in those side effects. I am told to monitor it and see how things are. These are pretty easy to deal with though.
What I have been told is that the fatigue from radiation is worse and that after a couple of hours it hits you after treatment. The way I realized to combat this is just work through it and you will not have time to think that you are tired. During chemo treatment I was permitted to work on my laptop during treatment. I asked the manager of radiation if I was permitted to use wireless earbuds while I was in the treatment room. I was told no emphatically. When I asked the staff it was divided, one said I should be able to and the other said no that I was there for treatment and should be relaxing. My appointments seem to alternate between morning and afternoon appointments and the toughest part with the radiation is that I can not eat or drink anything 2 hrs prior to the appointment. It creates some issues with my strict eating schedule.
The more difficult part is my oral chemo pills need to be taken 12 hours apart, so I have timers set for that. They also need to be taken on a full stomach. The morning one is not too bad as I have it after breakfast. The harder part is having the nighttime one. I decided to take it at 8am and 8pm and it is tough having a completely full stomach prior to taking it. They said I should drink a full glass of water as well since there are so many pills I need to take. Since I can not drink a full glass of water, especially after a full stomach I drink what I can and I manage all of the pills fine. I am also back to the oral rinse routine, so I have timers and alarms going off telling me to do various things.
Talking to the pharmacist they want my hands to turn a faint shade of pink or red to indicate that the dosage is correct. If I do not have any side effects, they will increase the dosage for me. I personally do not think I will get too many side effects as I normally need the maximum daily dosage to be effective. The fact that I am taking it everyday though may counter it. It seems to work well for my migraines. I need to put cream on my hands and feet throughout the day to prevent potential blistering.
Things are going so well that my personal cancer navigator is going away for a couple of days leaving me to fend for myself.
Quoc Hao