Hi
I have completed two weeks of radiation/oral chemo treatment now and have realized that this is much more difficult than I had anticipated. The combination of my treatments is tough. I need to take my oral medication on a full stomach at approximately 8am and 8pm each day. This requires me to eat in the morning at 7am. My radiation treatment requires me to fast for 2 hrs prior to treatment and then treatment itself. Over the course of two weeks half of my appointments have been on time while others have been delayed, resulting in me losing around 3 hrs of eating/drinking per day. The result is I was losing a couple of pounds a week, but I have managed to stabilize the weight by having another feeding at 9pm. I also bought massive weight gain powder with 1250 calories per serving to help out with it.
The issue is with this less energy it has been making work much harder. I have been averaging approximately 1500 calories per day. Cognitively I thought that I could handle it, but reflecting back on the last couple of weeks there are times where I slipped up or could not perform up to standards. By Thursday afternoon it is exhausting and difficult to think. Fortunately my team cares much more about my health than I do and call me out on it and tell me to rest. I decided to just work 4 day work weeks and take Friday off to recuperate. I have been told that cumulative impact will get worse in the next couple of weeks. If I am struggling with it now, I am sure it is going to get worse. Now it takes me till Saturday to recover from this. It bothers me that this is so difficult, that it is not something that I can overcome with just willpower. The loss of energy does not impact nausea or fatigue, but the reduction in eating has resulted in dehydration and impacts my thinking. Luckily I only have 3 weeks left of this treatment and things should be better. I figured out the caloric intake, and with the decreased mental capacity by the end of the week. I just need to figure out the hydration issue now.
Quoc Hao