Throat Cancer. Side Effects During Treatment
My Dilemma
I am in a quandary from here on in as to how to describe what I was going through. I know myself and my wife were constantly searching for answers or anything to help our Journey through this stage 4 Cancer ( we are both positive people my wife started taking over as I got sicker.)
I came to the conclusion THESE ARE MY SYMPTOMS not necessarily yours,
BUT the REALITY is IT IS A HARROWING JOURNEY AND FRIGHTENING
being taken FROM A LIFE SENTENCE TO REMISSION -BUT IT IS POSSIBLE !
From here on it will be distressing to read. but I felt it necessary to disclose all the emotional, physical, and helplessness I felt during this time. Sugarcoating how I felt WOULD NOT HELP ANYONE.
This above-mentioned paragraph caused me the most dilemma- NOT TALKING ABOUT WHAT I HAD GONE THROUGH .
BUT IF I should DESCRIBE to people about what I had gone through!
WEEK 3. Hitting hard times.
To bring you up to date from week one to now I had 3 treatments of chemo and 18 approx treatments (some radiation appointments on Fridays were a double strength giving me Saturday and Sunday to recoup before going in on Monday hopefully helping me with my ability to cope.)
By this stage, Dr.Porceddu told me I had to have a Nasal Gastric Tube Down my nose directly into my stomach to feed me as I had lost over 15 kilograms in 3 weeks. my appetite was gone, I had trouble swallowing, my saliva gland now was not working leaving a completely dry mouth, my taste buds were burnt off, my throat was too sore to swallow, and I was feeling down and starting to doubt my ability to cope with the treatment.
(It is worth knowing that I tried and thought I was in a strong place mentally to fight this cancer before starting)
I had stopped taking all my medications so that nothing interfered with the chemotherapy drugs I was having each week.
1. Type 2 diabetic
2. Rheumatoid arthritis
3. Open heart surgery (15 years prior)
Professor Dr. Proceddu then started organizing other specialist department Doctors (The team that I met at the first meeting now I understand why !)
1. The dietician to organize my feed -like a milkshake that was to be my complete diet which was fed through a small hose from my nose to my stomach.
2. A Speech therapist To monitor the opening and closing of my mouth, throat, and speech functions.
3 Prescribing an anti-depressant to combat my anxiety.
4. I was becoming claustrophobic when the Radiation helmet was placed on so now I would have a calmative in the car on the way up when I was 30 minutes away to help me cope.
5 Prescibing Oxy Contin a pain killer
All of which I will designate episodes to as we go.
Diagram of a Nasal Gastric Tube (One used on me)
Diagram of a "PEG" feed
I went into a treatment room and a nurse came in to insert the nasal tube which she had limited experience with as most gastric feeds were through a "PEG" feed through the chest wall into the stomach. After a few tries an older nursing sister came in to insert the tube, not for the faint-hearted the tube was fed through my nasal cavity and down my throat - all the time I was dry reaching and (as the nurse explained) continually trying to swallow to ease the passage down into the stomach. It was an awful experience but it had to be done to keep me alive! ( I never asked why Dr. Porceddu wanted a nasal feed in preference to a "Peg" feed in the stomach-now I suspect it was to help keep my throat area open )
I have since learned that the nose method is used for short-time use and "peg" feed is a long-term solution.
I did not know at this time that it would be in place for over 9 months.
The importance of the nasal feed was evident.
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Welcome, I hope my blog helps in some way to cope with cancer.I am a survivor remember; One Day at a Time;
Regards
Phil on a Mission