Four weeks past treatment

Just a very short post to let you know that I am doing very well.  I have plenty of energy to see my friends, take care of the dog, and go on adventures.  I was in SF all day on Saturday, for instance.  I am much thinner and everyone says I "look good", which I think means "you look better with less weight".  Leslie even said I look hot.  Believe me, she hasn't said that in years!

Laura (Leslie's sis) really think my hair looks cute now.  Since, I have a big baldish area in the back—fully covered by hair above the radiation-burned line—my "style" looks different than usual.  I think it looks odd, but she swears it's a really good look.  Ok, I guess you can add that to the good things about cancer...improves hair style.

Well, is this better?

The mucus issue faded away about a week or so ago.  My mouth is much improved.  I still can't really eat without pain much beyond what I have been eating for weeks, but I can tell that will change very soon.

Essentially, I'm fine.  I'm resuming 'normal' life.  I will have a PET scan in a couple of months that will show if I am clear of cancer now.  I will post the results here when that happens.  Beyond that, the posts will be few and far between.  I do have one sum-up blog in me though, if you want to know what wisdom—if any—I gained by this experience.  Stay tuned for that...

The 10 best things about cancer...(well, this one goes to 11)

“Blog for a Cure” asks when you fill out your profile to name: What I Hate Most About Cancer.  However, there is nothing like: What have you learned from cancer? Or: What things do you appreciate from the experience? Something like that… So, I think that is unacceptable. As far as I am concerned, everything has a good side—cancer, in fact, more than many bad things.  And, I love lists.  So, here is mine:

1. Friends and family.  Just to feel the love and support is wonderful. I am sure my friends loved me before I had cancer, but they express it more now.
2. I feel luckier than ever to have such a beyond-wonderful partner. 
3. The cancer card is awesome.  Don’t want to do something?  Want someone to do something for you?  Just say the magic word and voilà!
4. I can now make jokes about cancer with no fear!
5. I love seeing all the cool technology that exists to cure cancer.  And to live in an age when it exists. (Which is really recent!)
6. I loved meeting a lot of incredibly competent and warm medical folks.  And, I really got to see the strengths and weaknesses of our medical system up close and personal.
7. I confirmed that what I thought intellectually about getting a life-threatening illness squared with my emotional reaction.  That pleased me greatly.
8. I got my Mac Air as a “cancer present”. It’s awesome.
9. I got to use the excuse that I had ‘chemo brain’ when I did something stupid for a period of time (but I don’t get to use it any more).
10. I’ve gained some wisdom, which I hope can be passed to others to help their bout with throat cancer go better.  (Go Jimmy!  I don’t know him, but via emails I have been communicating with his partner and him about my experience. He just started treatments today.)
11. There is no doubt that the fact that I now weigh my-only-in-a-dream weight of 120 is a huge perk.

Went to a restaurant!

I realized that I could probably eat sashimi, so we went to the local sushi place, Sushi Totoro.  The place caters to UCSC folks and is quite lively.  The bad news:  their fish was no good (particularly their ahi).  But, I ordered the sashimi sampler (ahi, hamachi, salmon) and ate it all, and very quickly I should add.  So, I can go out to eat again!   That said, Leslie is just going to go to a fish store and buy it.  Much cheaper and easier....


Then, I thought I could probably eat scallops cooked in butter, too.  Leslie cooked a bunch last night and they were wonderful. 

So, I am now up to 7 food items!

Just thought you would want to know that there is some progress.

Mucus/Mucous

Just wanted to drop in with this for those that don't know. 

Mucus: A thick slippery fluid produced by the membranes lining certain organs such as the nose, mouth, throat, and vagina. Mucus is the Latin word for "a semifluid, slimy discharge from the nose." Note that mucus is a noun while the adjective is mucous.

Now, I wrote correctly about my mucus, but most people wrote back about the mucous (using it as a noun) as if I had blown the spelling. I just wanted to point out that I had it right.

You can tell I am back to my normal self, right?

Side effect update

In this blog mid-treatment, I ran down the expected side effects. Now that I am almost two weeks past the end of treatment, I thought a rundown of where I am at is in order.

But, before I do that, I just want to remind everyone that my prognosis is excellent. I have over a 90% chance that I will go into complete remission and this will just be this really weird incident in my life. All my doctors are really pleased with my progress. There will be a lot of follow-up, of course. But expect to hear only good news from me on that front.

• Fatigue
  Yep, I certainly have this one. The docs say I won't be back to normal in that department for 6 months. I hope that isn't true. But, I am, indeed, quite fatigued. Normally I sit in my laz-y-boy most the day and read or watch TV. I've been watching the women's world cup, the Giants (those last two losses to Chicago were really no fun) and, soon, the Tour de France. I used to sleep about 7 hours a night. Normal now is 12 hours. I do take a walk every day, do exercises (stretching, sit-ups, push-ups, etc) and fix things that need to be fixed. Anyway, I am betting that I come back faster than six months. I am much too impatient for a long convalescence. I went downtown today and that was fun.
  
• Mouth sores/ muscositis
  Oh yeah, I certainly have this one. This is the problem that was actually supposed to get worse the two weeks after the treatment was over and I do think it has. But, all I can hope is that it starts improving because this problem severely limits what I can eat. Which is almost nothing. I have about five things I can eat, which is all I have eaten for about 5 weeks. It gets really old...And, of course, this problem comes with all that mucus.
  
• Neck burn exterior (and interior)
  Well the interior burn certainly happened; the exterior burn didn't. It was probably because I was already very tan in my neck (from the three months in Hawaii) and I followed a regime of skin care that they recommended to limit the burn. It worked.

This is about as red as it got.  The neck just looks tan now

• Hair loss where radiated (on the neck line)
  Yep, it happened. I don't think anybody noticed. But, here is a picture.
 

• Loss of taste, appetite
  You know my taste never really went away, it just got a little wonky. But, I certainly don't have much of an appetite except for those five things. I am looking forward to actually adding food and seeing if my appetite returns.
  
• Weight loss
  Well, this was a really strange trip. I had started at 149 (having gained four pounds intentionally). Right before my infection, I was at 144. Then, I started getting hydrated and I actually gained a ton of water weight. When I left the hospital, I weighed 156 pounds! At least 15 pounds was water weight as I hadn't been eating nearly as much as I had earlier.  Two days after I left the hospital, I weighed 135! And, it wasn't like I was peeing a lot. I think I lost it through the mucus. Anyway, I have been maintaining that weight since then.
  

 
So, I will let you know when my mouth improves. Beyond that, assume I am getting stronger every day. 
 
And, by the way, I got tickets to the opera on Sunday so we will actually get to sit.