Category Archives: Cancer

Cancer, Food

It was a dark and stormy night

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Literary license, that: it is not quite dark just yet. But it’s getting there, and it is stormy, and writers tell half-truths anyway, so it’s as accurate as anything else that springs from a fevered imagination.

I’m sitting here having the first (small) bowl of ice cream I’ve had in a couple of months. It tastes like…well, nothing much at all. At a minimum, I suppose I should be thankful that it doesn’t taste truly awful, as other things do since the gallbladder surgery. A friend of the family, who happens to be a nurse, says that’s likely the result of the anesthesia, and should pass at some point. The story of my life: this will pass. That will pass. With time, it will get better. I must admit, I’m getting pretty sick of hearing that refrain over and over, especially since progress, such as it is, is so minute that it can barely be measured.

But I will finish the ice cream. Calories have to come from somewhere, and at least this has the semblance of normalcy, unlike the routine of pouring a cup of formula down the tube, followed by a cup or so of water. There is reason behind this, too: today’s weigh-in at the doctor’s office was 104 pounds. I’m surprised that I only lost two pounds while stuck in the hospital, but still, that weight is – as my family constantly reminds me – not enough. Sometimes I wonder just what target weight they have in mind for me.

I’m continuing to heal form the gallbladder surgery. Coughing still hurts, and if I move too quickly on my right side – if, for instance, I pump my fist after a particular good play by the Jaguars defense at a Monday night football game against the Steelers – it can be rather painful. As everyone tells me, though, this will pass and I’ll be as good as new. Or as good as new is when your body has been wracked by rounds of fighting cancer.

And I must admit to feeling quite uninspired about things of late. No doubt all the crap that’s been happening in the past year and a half is starting to catch up here. But I thought today that perhaps it’s time to rattle some of those pots and pans again, at least, and get some people fed. Sunday, the Jaguars are away at Indianapolis, and a smoking session – of the meat variety – may be just the ticket. Food, friends, family, football: even if it doesn’t break me out of the funk, it will at least be a diversion. Now just to figure out what to feed the vegetarians amongst us, who have some unfathomable idea that a big ol’ slab of ribs isn’t something suitable for eating…

Cancer

You have won a fun-filled trip!

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To the emergency room of your local hospital! Yes, this trip is designed to maximize your enjoyment of life away from the emergency room, where you and a loved one will spend ten hours waiting to be seen by a physician. While you’re waiting, you’ll enjoy looking around the cubicle where you’re placed and writhing on the bed in agony because no painkillers were given. You’ll also enjoy the emotional thrills of subjecting a (tired) loved one – who happens to be your mother – to share your experience. The guilt will be great for building character!

So, Friday afternoon, we went to see the gastro guy, who gave us the results of the scan, which we all expected: gallstones. A whole bag of stones, actually, is how he put it. By the time he arrived at 4:35 for our 4 PM appointment, talked to us for a few minutes, and gave us our options, the surgeon’s office had closed (4:52). So he scrawled the number to their office on a piece of paper and told us to call Monday. That was exactly what we planned to do. He also mentioned that if the pain got too bad, to head to the ER.

And then came Friday evening. I had some formula. They ate real food. A little later, I started feeling the same old sickness. It progressed to the puking phase, but the pain had kicked in long before that. I told my mom that we were going to have to go to the ER, because I couldn’t stand this any more. I told her to let me finish throwing up and then take me over. Which she did.

They got me out of the waiting area and into a holding room pretty quickly, but it all went downhill from there. I slipped in and out of a doze, hurting the while time, someone stuck their head in about three times, and we finally saw a doctor at around 10 AM. He wasn’t too happy that we’d been there since midnight, and neither were we, but I was in no condition to get angry. Even though we had no guarantees that they could squeeze me into the surgical schedule for the weekend, I didn’t care and told them to go ahead and admit me. They gave me a gown, rolled me up to a room, gave me a drip with dextrose and some painkillers, and I told my mom to go home. This was Saturday.

Sunday: no surgery room for me. A day of hanging around the room, occasionally getting drugs for pain, and being bored out of my skull. I did get some sleep, although most of the time that sleep was interrupted by the staff’s never-ending need to check my temperature and blood pressure, and by the periodic taking off and landing of the hospital’s helicopter, the landing pad for which happened to be on the next building’s roof, right across from my room.

Monday: the surgeon that we were actually going to call showed up. He said that he probably would not be able to make any room on his schedule for that day, but could try to get someone to schedule me for Tuesday. If I wanted to wait for his schedule, surgery wouldn’t be until Wednesday. Tuesday it was, then. Knowing that I was to have surgery, each shift change the nurses asked me if I’d had anything to eat or drink by mouth. No, nothing since Friday night, which I threw up.

Tuesday: by this time, I’ve had my mom bring my laptop up so at the very least I could do some work via dialup. I did get some things done, but hospital living is a little hard on the time recognition- harder even than normal for me: I would look up and it would be 2 AM suddenly. I’d drift off and it would be 8 AM, time for my neighbor to be having breakfast while I continued with drips. Nevertheless, we were assured that today would be the day, but we couldn’t get an exact time since I was an addon to the schedule. They finally came for me around 4, rolled me down to the OR holding pen, and at 4:30 – after taking away my glasses – rolled me into the ER. After scooting over to the quite cold ER table from the gurney, I made small talk with the nurses while they prepped me for the IV and the knockout juice and then zzzz……..

Tuesday, later: I wake up in recovery. Not the same kind of crushing pain as when I woke up from my original cancer surgery, but then again, it wasn’t the same kind of surgery, either. Still, my gut was full of air, my side was tender, and I didn’t feel all that great. Well enough to chat with the nurse who was watching over me and trying to remember to take deep breaths so as not to set off the respiratory monitor. After about 15 minutes, we rolled back up to the room and I managed to get back into bed. I’m not quite sure how this was done, actually, and can’t remember if I walked into the room or they rolled me in and I just walked to the bed. Regardless, they loaded me with my drip and my drugs and then the fam showed up. By this time, it was 6:45. I drifted in and out, everyone went home, and settled back into the hospital routine.

Wednesday: The doctor showed up, said everything went very well, and that if I started passing some gas and walked around a bit, they’d let me out. I told him I’d been burping – painful – and he said that was the wrong end. They gave me a PCA to click as needed for pain (every eight minutes) and lowered my drip to 20 drops an hour, bringing me a liquid platter for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The slip actually said “Bland diet plate (Pink)”, and boy, was that true: pudding or custard, iced tea or coffee, grits or crappy soup, milk, one creamer, one sugar, no pepper. I barely ate any of it. I did manage to walk up and down the hall a bit, but no gas action. I’m convinced that what I was burping and what was probably escaping out through the feeding tube placement was enough, and decided Wednesday evening it was time to go. But that would have to wait until…

Thursday morning: breakout time! Another crappy breakfast, followed by a visit from the rounds doctor, who checked me over and pronounced me fit to go home. The surgeon didn’t come up, but a nurse did come in with my disharge paperwork. I signed away, called my mom, and crawled back into my clothes.

Since then, I’ve been home, alternately sleeping and working, trying to get formula down, and trying to stop coughing and sneezing because those activities are not fun at all, and thinking that I desperately need a shower. I’m moving around pretty well, but it’s going to be awhile before I can lift anything, so I’ll have to drag a volunteer to the NOC when I’m able to go to set up the servers that I had planned to set up last Friday night before the attack came on.

On the plus side, maybe I’ll be able to get back into the whole eating thing before I waste away to absolutely nothing, as there’s no doubt I lost a pound or two while cooped up in the hospital. It’d be nice to be able to have even a few bites of a meal, if that’s all i can manage, without being doubled over in pain afterwards.

So there, you have it. All the news that’s fit to print.

Cancer

Tossing stones

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The results are in.

Monday, the day before my scheduled ultrasound and HIDA scan, I made a mistake: I ate two small chicken nuggets from a fast food place. About fifteen minutes later, I was in agony, and on my knees barfing. The chills set in afterward, and I bundled up in a blanket even though it was about 85 degrees. It passed, eventually, but not without leaving me feeling miserable.

Tuesday dawned, and I headed off for the scans. We did get the preliminary results today: the ultrasound showed nothing, because they had a terrible time seeing my gallbladder, and the HIDA scan showed stones.

Now, I know how painful it is when an attack comes. My family knows how terrible it is. Surely the medical people know how bad it can be. Can we move up our scheduled followup appointment from the 27th? No, says the staff at the doctor’s office. There’s nothing open. And what about all the pain between now and then, asks my mom? Well, says the nurse at the office, if it gets really bad, I guess you’ll have to go to the hospital.

Wow, that’s very caring.

So, here we sit, with me feeling seasick all the time, wary of eating anything in case it sets off an attack. I also now have pain in my back as well as the front – something noted in the symptoms – and I feel like crap. This is no way to go through a day. Friday, we will be calling around to other gastro offices to see who can work us in. It does me no good to pour formula down the tube or eat anything if it just comes out, one way or the other.

We also saw the ENT for this spot the PET scan picked up on my tongue. Reassuring news: he sees no bumps, feels nothing, and says my tongue is still raw and red (which makes sense, since I have been trying to eat real food, even with this gallbladder nonsense). So we’ll keep an eye on that. Not so reassuring: this spot on the mandible is probably dental, because I can feel some pain in my gum and jaw on the lower left side, and I’m hoping that the radiation didn’t hurt things so badly that I have to have major dental work done. I hate dental-related things, and since I can’t open my mouth very widely, it’s even more painful these days. Now we need to find a dentist who is familiar with treating patients who have had radiation treatments.

On the plus side, we’re in negotiations to buy out another relatively small company, and waiting on their decision. We also went back to the developer and signed a contract (as well as laid down a check). There is a five day period where the contract can be voided, so we’re using that time to look at a few more places, just to make sure we’ve found what we really want.

And it’s football season officially! Sunday is game day, and the Cowboys are coming to town. I’m hoping we have a good season, but the team can be so schizophrenic – just look at the Foxboro meltdown from last season – that it’s hard to predict how they’ll do. Still, the games are fun, and Sunday will be one day shy of exactly a year that I last went to a game. At least this year I’m not going through radiation and chemo that make me into a zombie. I’m looking forward to reaching my goal of going to every game this season, except for one when I’ll be out of town. We’ll see just how well that works, given all these other issues swirling around.

Cancer, Life in general

The hits just keep on comin’

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I haven’t fallen off the face of this earth just yet.

The past couple of weeks have been interesting.

First, there’s this whole gallbladder thing. From the 18th to about the 27th, I was either wishing for death to get rid of the agony, or cursing the pain and nausea that this issue is causing. I switched back to an ultra-lowfat diet consisting mainly of formula, and the pain has backed off a bit. The low level nausea persists, but it isn’t incapacitating. This also allowed me to attend, with a small gathering of good folks, the 40th birthday of a dear friend.

Between those two things, I had yet another PET scan. The night of the dinner, the doctor called with the results: two spots lit up. One in the left mandible, which may be dental – which means the usual three month exams I get have to be pushed up a little in this case – and one at the base of the tongue – which means a trip back to the ENT for a look and most likely another biopsy. Oh, and I cracked a piece of filling out of one of my teeth on the right side, even though it isn’t as if I’m eating jawbreakers here.

I’ve been taking Prevacid to help with the reflux and heartburn I’ve been having. I have insurance now (that doesn’t cover anything related to the cancer, since it’s preexisting), and they refused to pay for the Prevacid when it was first prescribed for me, saying that Prilosec was available over the counter. The gastro doctor told me to take the Prevacid twice a day instead of once, and wrote me a huge prescription for it to last until we get things sorted. The insurance company balked. The doctor’s office sent the insurance company a fax, telling them it was indeed medically necessary – after all, I have to take it twice a day, every day, without stopping after 14 days, and since Prevacid is little pellets that don’t have to be crushed, it will go down the feeding tube, unlike Prilosec, which would have to be crushed up, going against the way you’re supposed to take it. The insurance company once again balked. I had to shell out $300 on Saturday for 60 capsules, because I was down to one in the last batch that I’d gotten (and paid for out of my pocket). I’m paying my premiums. I’d take something else if it worked and would go down the tube. The least they can do is help me take care of my HEALTH since it is HEALTH insurance that I’m buying from them.

Then my email crapped itself at the domain here, which is why your mail bounced, Cal. That, of everything, is naturally the simplest to repair.

The other day, we acquired a tiny company (relative to us), and we’re working on integrating those people into the main billing system, sending notices out, and doing all the other things that have to be done to merge them. That’s always an adventure.

And finally: today we found a lot and a builder in a development not far from here. I’m crossing my fingers that everything goes the way it should and I will, for the first time, become a homeowner. This qualifies as being just as scary as some of these other things, albeit in a different way.

There you have it: I’m as well as can be expected and still around. It certainly could be worse. I could have died in a horrible freak incident like Steve Irwin did.

Cancer

The gall of it all

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As faithful readers of this blog know, my eating habits are, shall we say, a bit off-kilter. This is through no fault of my own, I assure you. Being on the cancer diet for nine months has a way of taking the punch out of you a bit. I’m trying, though, to eat by mouth as much as possible, and my recent round of weight loss is directly attributable to that: nothing through the feeding tube+small amounts of food by mouth+a body still recovering from the ravages of cancer and the associated treatment = weight dropping like a stone in water.

So it was back to the old feeding tube for me, for use a couple of times a day. Lately, that has become three times a day because the weight continues to slowly come off the frame. And I’m trying to stick to that, if only to get my mother’s nagging out of my ears.

But a funny thing happened on the way back to normal, a trip that looks as if it will not be ending anytime soon. And I don’t mean funny ha-ha.

I’ve mentioned the hideous burning pain I’ve felt occasionally in the past month or so, that feels like it’s going to finish what the cancer itself could not, complete with nausea, vomiting, and the desire to just curl up and pull a rock over my head. Unfortunately, that pain seems to be coming much more often now and staying longer, like some freeloading bum of a relative who just wants to hang out on your couch eating all your chips and drinking all your beer while monopolizing your television and leaving the seat up on the toilet. This last round began on Friday and lasted into Tuesday morning, where it finally dissipated into a lingering nausea. It was bad enough to cause me to miss the first home preseason game – the first football game I would have been able to go to in a year. None of that is good. No, not good at all.

Saturday, with wave one behind me and with wave two upon me, I finally croaked out to my mom that perhaps a visit to the gastro people was in order. After all, a person can’t go on like this, and I certainly can’t afford to drop more weight. At 106 pounds, I weigh less than I weighed throughout high school (110), and I’m bony enough without calling more attention to all the sharp angles. But with this sort of pain gripping me, it’s almost impossible to eat or pour something down the tube, because it comes right back up.

So they wanted to give me an appointment for a month from Monday, the day we called. My mom pointed out that this was in fact no good, and I told her I’d be dead by then if this kept up. A few moves from point to point on the phones in the doctor’s office, and we found ourselves with an appointment for Wednesday. Hooray.

When we finally got in to see the doctor after waiting around for an hour, and after he told me how much better I looked now than I looked when he put in my feeding tube almost a year ago (thank you, now that my skin isn’t being burned off by radiation, I suppose I do), and after I described the symptoms, the first words out of his mouth were, “Do you still have your gallbladder?”

Now, I never really thought about my gallbladder. Who does? It’s not as if it’s the first thing on my mind. “Gee, I wonder how my varoius internal organs are doing this fine morning?” But he’s a gastro guy, and it’s like me diagnosing a technical issue I’ve seen a thousand times before when someone describes their problem: I’m sure that my symptoms clicked for him the same way someone’s email problem would for me. And naturally I have my gallbladder still, since my surgeries were for tumor removal and tube fitting. But perhaps not having it would be better. As he explained it, people who are not nutritionally functional for an extended period of time and/or who lose weight rapidly in a short period of time – like, say, oral cancer patients who have been having a formula fed to them through a tube directly into their gut – are at risk for impaired or reduced gallbladder functionality. It gets “sludgy”, stones build, and then when that person does start eating real food again, the efforts the gallbladder makes to do its normal job create the pain that makes the person wish they were dead.

When I was younger, and all through high school, I never had any broken bones. Never required any surgeries. I had injuries, of course – it’s next to impossible not to with all the activities I was involved in and how reckless kids tend to be with their bodies. But throughout it all, if I got banged up, I healed and moved on, and I never had anything particularly serious other than a bad case of bronchitis, laryngitis, colic, and dehydration (all at once) that landed me in the hospital in the ICU for a few days the year after I graduated high school. I seem to be making up for all those missed opportunities now: a cancer diagnosis, two surgeries, two hospitalizations, two months of radiation and chemo, and a tube to get calories, all in the span of a year.

Before I chalk another surgery on my scoreboard to remove another piece of me, we have to go through some tests. On the 5th, I’ll be returning to the outpatient center – which is where all my PET scans have been done, another of which I had Thursday, and during which I asked the tech to be on the lookout for my gallbladder during the CT part (it was hiding, so no news there) – for an ultrasound, followed an hour later by a HIDA scan. Like the PET scan, the HIDA uses a radioactive tracer. Unlike the PET scan, where you have to wait about an hour before the scan, for the HIDA, images are taken at specific intervals as your body deals with the tracer. The test takes about two hours. That will be yet another in a series of unproductive daytime hours for me, I can see that already. After that, it’s back to the doctor later in the month, to discuss the results and where we go from here.

One of the questions I’ve been amusing myself with today is about the potential surgery. It’s done as laparoscopy, just as the tube placement was. Which leads to the inevitable question: since I have a hole in my abdomen where the tube is placed, will they actually be able to blow up my abdominal area without me leaking the air out? Or will they have to slap a piece of duct tape around the hole? Inquiring minds want to know.

Cancer

The Body Politik

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I never used to think my body would betray me until I was quite old and the pieces started aging beyond their ability to repair themselves. Then, of course, this cancer business started and I realized that sometimes it isn’t just age alone that causes your body to rebel against you. As we wound our way through treatment, I thought perhaps I might be able to recover as quickly as I’d always recovered from the dings, scrapes, scratches, sprains, and other assorted mishaps I’d experienced over the years – the result of an active life. Unfortunately, this has not turned out to be the case. As one of my ENTs puts it, it’s a major medical trauma, and the rational part of my mind agrees and understands this. The other part of me gets frustrated because of the physical limitations and the inability I have now to accurately (100%) predict how my body is going to react to something: anything from picking up a bottle of dishwasher fluid with my left arm to eating ice cream I’ve made. I did both of these last night. The former caused pain to shoot up from my shoulder to my head and I nearly dropped the entire bottle. The latter caused me to wake up at 3 in the morning with a bad stomachache (no burning, thank you Prevacid) and a feeling like someone had punched me right in the sternum, so I suppose I need to add Lactaid to my drug cocktails. That caused me not to do much of anything beyond take some drugs for nausea and try to sleep until it went away around 2 this afternoon.

Which means that I did not do any of the things I had planned to do this morning: mow the lawn, make some bread, try my hand at some pasta, and I’m not cooking tonight. It’s disappointing to be hostage to the unknown manner the body will react. I’m hoping that, as all the doctors say, time will help with all of this. And I hope I can remain patient enough with myself to get through it without going slowly insane.

Cancer, Life in general, The Challenge

A do-nothing day

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Last night, after our fabulous dinner party, I took a friend back to her place – her car-ma was apparently not good Monday, as she had both a flat and something preventing the car from actually starting, so we’d sent Gabrielle to fetch her for dinner (because people have to eat, and especially eat my cooking!), and we couldn’t very well make her walk home. When I returned to the homestead, my mom informed me that she’d made an executive decision: no mowing the lawn for me on Tuesday, and no cooking either. Tuesday was to be a rest day for me. I objected a bit, but I was plenty tired, and when Tuesday rolled up, even more tired. The exertion over the weekend and into Monday night caught up with me.

So I did a bunch of “real” work, some paperwork, and generally tried to relax. But I felt (and feel) antsy, for some reason that I can’t quite touch. I think that it’s probably because my brain is working away like a frenzied, overcaffeinated squirrel. This makes both my sleep and my waking hours restless, as it’s difficult to turn things off and veg out.

What’s on my mind? All sorts of things.

Italy. For some reason, Italy has moved into the first spot of places I want to visit. It has been in the back of my mind for years (I used to think my ex and I would be going), but recently moved into the forefront. Maybe it was the brush with mortality, maybe it was just the general thought of it, or maybe it’s something else, like leftovers from watching the World Cup finals, but I’ve set a tentative date of 2009. We’ll see how that works out.

Business(es). I have two more brands that I want to launch, in the same arena as my main business. One site is about ready to shove out the front door, and the other needs just a little tweaking and it’s done. Really, the only thing left to do is set up a merchant account for each and make the sites/ordering systems active, as I’m sure they’ll eventually reach the level of the flagship brand with a little pushing. I’m not sure why I just haven’t finished this yet, but I should probably set a firm date for those, to get them going. After all, diversifying is what I always preached to people when I was a stockbroker, and the same rules apply here, too.

Business(es), the food version. I’ve been trying to come up with a good name for a food business, and I’ve started researching the requirements for packaging food here in Florida. One of the first things I need to do is take the Food Manager Certification test, to get that out of the way. The certification is good for five years, and someone is required to hold that certification for just about any business that deals with producing food other people will be eating. All the other rules and regs I’ll have to research and then I’ll have to put together all the paperwork that goes along with starting a business, of course, but I don’t mind that sort of thing. I keep wondering just how some of these people who open restaurants get the money to do the renovations and keep themselves going while they build their business. I also wonder why so many restaurants tend to serve the same type of menu if they’re aimed toward the middle class market. I notice this here, but also in other cities I happen to visit, like Savannah.

Food, in general. Speaking of restaurants, and skipping over (for now) the wisp of desire I can feel deep down to open one, why is it that the serving portions are so damned huge these days at most restaurants? People are getting fatter, and at least part of that is because of the portion sizes when eating out and the fact that most people were lectured when they were growing up to clean their plates. There’s no reason to be part of the clean your plate club. Now, in my time BC (before cancer), I could have stood to lose about 10 pounds or so, but I can honestly say that even then I was usually unable to finish most of the dishes I was served when dining out because they were just so freaking large. What we really need is something between the plate-big-as-your-head restaurant and the look-we’re-so-stylish-and-classy-our-portions-are-the-size of-your-pinky restaurant. And if that sort of place could serve something that wasn’t the same as any other restaurant, so much the better.

Food, selling it. One of the issues I have at the moment is that I really don’t measure anything except when baking. this means that I’m going to have to experiment a bit and write down whatever is going into the mixing bowl or pot so we can find the best combination and so it can be recreated consistently for sale. For the pulled pork I made, I did actually write down the ratios, and that turned out pretty well. Of course, there will have to be successive tastings by my core group of tasters, and I imagine I’ll need to farm out some of that to other people to have as many opinions as possible while narrowing down the choices to whichever one winds up with the most fans. Then it will be time to find a commercial kitchen (since you can’t package food for sale in your home kitchen in Florida) or a copacker (a business that will take your recipes and pack them for you, in their own commercial grade facilities so you don’t have to have any), have a lab verify the ingredients and give the nutrional value, and so on.

Food, cooking it. I’d really like to get my schedule sot of back on track so I can consistently do the things I’d like to do in addition to working, like baking bread on a regular basis, experimenting with making pastas, making sausages, doing some canning, and so on. I also need to really work on making menus in advance so I can ensure I have things on hand for at least a couple of meals. After all, we don’t live in the days where a daily trip to the market is required, and with a little planning, this would save me some time, not wreck my schedule during the day, and would allow me to be more productive with all the things I’d like to be doing in addition to the day job. I have to admit all of this is probably going to be the most difficult for me, because of my incredibly odd sleeping habits and my tendency to decide at the last minute what the menu will be. Right now, for instance, I have no idea what’s going to be on the menu for Wednesday – today, as I type this – but I should. In fact, I should know what’s on the menu for Wednesday through Saturday. But I don’t. When I think of it, I’ll let you know.

There are some other things floating by, as well. I’ve another PET scan scheduled for the end of August. I’m almost able to open my mouth widely enough to get the Therabite in so I can start using that to help stretch my jaw muscles. I need to do some laundry. I feel a bit sick to my stomach right this instant. I need to increase my calorie intake in a serious way – I weighed in at 107 before the Savannah trip, weighed in at 106 this evening when I went to Publix for some heavy cream so I could make some ice cream, and won’t be able to make it through mowing the lawn if I don’t have enough in me. The problem is that most of the time when I eat, I feel sick. At least I don’t have that horrible reflux as long as I take the Prevacid. I need to find a house to buy, as I won’t be buying the one we’re in right now. I need to head to Costco to replenish the bulk items. I need to finish the remainder of the quarterly paperwork and get it out the door. I have a couple of servers coming in that need to be set up, and I need to order up some gear for our expansion at the NOC. And so on. A million things make their way through the rivers of my brain…

Cancer, Food, The Challenge

The Challenge: Day Nine

Success is measured in centimeters.

Well, it is if you’re a recovering cancer patient with jaw muscle issues that prevent you from opening your mouth very widely.

Today – another lovely day in paradise, with dark clouds looming on the horizon, promising us our daily deluge – was a return trip to the dentist. People who have gone through radiation to their mouth and throat have to be particularly vigilant about dental health. Some of this is due to the non-eating during treatment and afterwards, and some is due to the reduced salivary function, which normally helps keep teeth bathed. While some people have teeth yanked before going into treatment, I did not, and I’m pleased to say that my dental health is still good, all things considered. Today was a return trip to see if we could do the cleaning we were unable to do last time because they couldn’t get their instruments in.

We could. And we did. For the first time in a year, I went through a cleaning. Painful, to be sure. But clean. People like me have to go every three months instead of every six like regular people, but if it allows me to keep my choppers, I’m all for it.

So, an unqualified success on that front.

Eating, however, remains elusive and rather puzzling.

There are a myriad of issues surrounding cancer: diagnosis, treatment options, the actual treatment itself, recovery in all phases of life, from eating to talking to even walking around and being able to care for yourself. Right now, the single largest issue for me has to be eating. I am simply not hungry most of the time, which contributes as much to the weight loss problems as the inability to eat does. However, I’ve found that at time, when I do manage to get something down, it’s like eating Chinese food – even after having a bowl of soup and some ice cream just a short while ago, for instance, I’m still hungry. Part of this is because I’ve not really been eating by mouth the past week and it’s always better to really eat and get the motions going rather than use the tube. Part of this is because when I do eat by mouth, I’m not able to eat high bulk items or items from the high fiber group as I simply cannot eat them with my current limitations, and thus not able to feel “full” when eating more liquidy type things. And part of it is the tasting issue, because when you can’t taste much of anything, it’s damn hard to work up enthusiasm to eat. It’s a bit of a conundrum.

Fortunately, I’ve dug around in my books and found this, which we had picked up between surgery and radiation/chemo, since we knew eating would be quite the adventure. I’ve also found this and this. I’ve been leafing through them for inspiration, much the same way I look through any cookbook. Hopefully something will come together and get me back on track here.

For the others: they had to fend for themselves tonight. I spent a lot of time after the dentist dealing with the bank who handles my business account, as that’s been a complete nightmare for the past three months, and talking with the manager at a branch of a competing bank, trying to decide whether to go ahead and change banks. And taking a nap, which I apparently needed since it lasted almost two hours. No breadmaking, no pickles, no chicken stock, but since the bread only take about three hours total including the rising times, I’m considering tossing it together tonight. Tomorrow, though, after a run to Fresh Market for some bulk whole wheat flour, those projects will begin, as will prep for dinner. One sister has requested a low fat menu, with a salad, and a steamed veggie of some kind (or some other preparation that won’t rob the vegetable of its nutrition – what does she think I’ve been making?), so I need to come up with something for that.

Your regularly-scheduled Challenge update will recommence tomorrow evening.

Cancer, Food

Medical malfunction

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Bet you thought I’d given up on the old challenge after just two days, eh?

Bah!

No, I encountered an issue with my body not working the way it’s supposed to work. Day three saw a visit to the farmer’s market to pick up a few things and to see what the place was like mid-week. The morning was brilliant, sunny, and slowly warming into our usual mid-90 degree weather. I even took some pictures for those who don’t have the opportunity to visit. Before leaving, yours truly poured a cup of formula down the old tube: fast, calorie-laden formula.

After running a few more errands and returning home, though, things went rapidly south. Another round of forumla in the afternoon, and at around 3:30 I was stricken with yet another episode of that horrible burning, painful sensation around my sternum and into my abdominal area. as an added bonus this time, it was also painful to breathe, and for a few moments I actually considered having someone take me to the ER. Heaves, vomiting, pain, and sleep followed, in random and repeating order. That night, I had to go to the NOC to repair something, and had my sister drive. I managed to barf at the NOC and on the way home, although the latter was dry heaving. Painful. Another trip to the NOC was required at about 4:30 in the morning, and for that I drove myself – but also managed to do some more dry heaving after returning. Thursday, things calmed down again and I got a little soup down.

Today? A trip to the doctor, some samples of Prevacid, and we’ll see. If this doesn’t work, it’s going to be a trip to the GI for them to scope me, which will be just as unpleasant as everything else related to this cancer business.

However, I am catching up and will have updates a bit later today. My biggest problem right now is that I’m having trouble tasting anything, so all this soup tastes like just so much of nothing…

Cancer, Odds and ends

Claves a la victoria

That means “keys to victory” for those of you who don’t habla. It could also mean that you’re watching too much Copa Mundial.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been waking up off and on (more on than off lately) in the early morning hours with a horrible burning sensation around my sternum. With or without puking, it typically goes away within a couple of hours.

Not so yesterday, where it last well into the night. About noon yesterday, if I’d not known any better, I’d have thought I was suffering a heart attack because the pain just would not go away. But I wasn’t, and it did, eventually. However, it also resulted in a grand caloric intake of one cup of formula. Today, faring slightly better with no food to speak of yesterday, I’ve managed three cups. Which is likely more calories than I usually take in by mouth, so that’s good, but which means no solid food today, so that’s bad.

The dietician thinks it is likely reflux, but it’s quite strange: I don’t eat for a few hours before going to bed, and when I do wake up with the pain, it’s always a few hours after that. So we’re talking about six hours, generally, between the last time I eat and when the pain starts. It only happens after I’ve gone to bed (no pain any other time), and it’s still happening even though I’ve added a couple of pillows to raise myself up a bit so as not to lie entirely flat – visions of my recliner-sleeping days, although not such a severe angle.

This brings us around to adding yet another doctor visit next week. I really have to get my cholesterol checked again, since I’ve not been taking the lipitor since last year, and we’ll have to see about this reflux issue. It’s a strange issue, and only really started in the past couple of weeks – coincidentally, when I started eating out again, and usually after a certain combination of foods. We shall see what happens as we move into The Challenge and the eating out takes a back seat to eating in.

Speaking of eating in, I’m pushing around ideas in my head about things to cook. If you have any special requests, feel free to send them along or post in the comments. I’ll see what I can do.

And yes, I am working at taking care of myself. The lectures, they don’t stop…

For Saturday: a trip to the farmer’s market and a journey to Le Creuset, as I could really use a dutch oven (French oven, I suppose, since it is, after all, Le Creuset). Braising, you know.