On 8/8/2007
Cavman wrote:
I was also a Stage IV tonsillar cancer with some lympnodes malignent. I took 7 weeks of chemo once a week and 7 weeks of radiation once a day. When I got done no cancer showed on the pet scan. I also refused the feeding tube and went from 240 to 180. I`m now 19 months out and weigh 216.
I have little taste and almost no saliva. I am trying still to adjust to that. It has changed my personality for the worse and family and friends don`t like being around me.
Be patient with your husband and remember only another patient like him can and will ever know what he has gone thru physically and emotionally.
He will survive this. I was wounded and fought like hell in Vietnam and it was nothing compared to this battle. He might as well know the 3 weeks after completeing treatment is the worst time. He has to feel he wants to kick this cancers ass and don`t let it beat him.
I took treatment with 2 other stage 4`s and 1 of us 3 still had cancer after treatment. It was smaller and they removed his nodes. Many have surgery after. Some doctors do it to make sure. Some don`t.
I went to a great team of doctors at the University of Michigan.
Please email me with questions. You will have many. I hope he is taking Ensure daily. Get strawberry only. I have spent thousands trying to figure out what I can eat and drink to survive the last 19 months so ask me questions.
Tell him good luck and pray everynight. Then get up and burn that cancer`s ass.
Ron in Michigan
Ron...
Wondering how you are doing. Hubby is out of treatment and just in the 'Hanging around' stage - post treatment and pre-testing. So far he has done incredible with eating and drinking. The effects of the radiation are not wearing off yet but it has just been two weeks since treatment ended.
He ended up having 9 cisplatin chemo rounds and 90 radiation treatments (two a day for 9 1/2 weeks) and had retained the ability to eat and drink throughout. He actually out-eats ME every day. There are very few things he cannot eat. I am in shock but his Doc's are VERY amazed at his progress.
As for his stamina.. he is trying to work as long a day as possible but is still extremely fatigued. Constipation has been a severe problem for him as well. The chemo port protrudes from his chest quite a bit and irritates him but there is no way that thing is coming out now. His skin is healing where the radiation turned him into a REAL redneck (he always was one, just now has the proof!) and he is planning things for the future. He is in the process of redoing the swimming pool (hiring people to work it) and is in good spirits.
How about you? Are things becoming easier for you? When will you have another Doc appointment?