Plodding Along

Dang, it's suddenly been a week since my last post. Not sure why but such is life.

Progress is MUCH slower than I was hoping for now that treatments have ended. I saw my Oncologist last Wednesday for a weekly check-in type visit. They said I look to be doing as expected and I need to temper my optimism a bit. Say what!?! I came in thinking that within a couple of weeks of ending treatments that I'd start to see some meaningful progress. They said that COULD happen but it could also be 3-4 more weeks before I even BEGIN to see any progress at all.

Current status, though. I continue to be extremely tired, though that's the one area I feel I have made a little bit of progress. The sores in my mouth and throat and, in particular, on my tongue are just too painful to describe. I've had a bit of an internal philosophical debate over pain medication. I'm generally not a big fan of huge volumes of medications but, I'll tell you, I'm taking a lot of pain meds and it's still pretty sore. The doc just tells me to keep bumping it up until I'm comfortable (within reason) but the level it would take to get there is just beyond my comfort level on other fronts -- not to mention, then, the side effects of the pain meds start kicking in.

Talking is difficult. The sore throat makes it hard in the first place but, more than that, the sores on my tongue make it difficult to enunciate. I know it's a struggle for those around me to understand me. Phone conversations are a whole problem of their own.

Mucositis continues to hang around with all its lovely symptoms. Pretty gross and disgusting. Enough said on that front.

Like I said, fatigue levels are incrementally better, I think. Still spending lots of time in my recliner but I did work up the energy to go to the basement over the weekend and watch Jenny and a couple of friends work on some stuff on our basement. You may laugh, but that really is an improvement over my previous energy level.

I have my weekly appointment in the Oncologist's office Wednesday. Hopefully they'll be a bit more optimistic this week than they were last. I'm really hoping to dip into something at the Christmas Dinner Table. Just nine days away, though, and today I can't imagine putting anything at all into my mouth.