The first couple of weeks of treatments were uneventful. A little nausea after the chemo treatment, and some pain across my collar bones and into my underarms from the tumour. It was definitely nothing that a few painkillers and anti-emetics couldn’t remedy. It was shortly after that when I started to feel the side effects from radiation treatment that I’d been warned about.
Continue reading Starting to Feel the Side Effects
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, look to tomorrow, rest this afternoon.”
― Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown’s Little Book of Wisdom
I’ve had a lot of people ask a lot of different questions, and one of the most asked questions was “what happened on a typical treatment day?” Continue reading My typical cancer treatment day
Using and taking care of my own PEG feeding tube wasn’t hard, but I did have a few goofs even though the Dietician explained to me what I needed to do (I was a captive audience during my first chemo session). Here I’ll talk about some tips and some necessary maintenance tasks . Continue reading Using and taking care of my own PEG feeding tube
Last time I wrote about getting my feeding tube (PEG tube), and I ended up being admitted to hospital for complications and observation. This post is a continuation of that post, and it picks up the story on the morning after the procedure.
Warning: more non-sugar-coated descriptions, and a photo of the finished product that some sensitive users might find unsettling. If these things bother you, please don’t read any further.
By the time I saw the Oncologist, I was already having great difficulty swallowing and my larynx was very narrow. For this reason he highly recommended that I get a gastric feeding tube, called a PEG tube (percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy). The typical risks of this procedure include infection and soreness after the procedure. Due to the location of my tumour, what I experienced was far from typical. Continue reading Getting my feeding tube (PEG)
The date is February 11, 2014. Log entry: first radiation treatment. I’m scared as heck because I have no idea of what to expect, other than some side effects and having to wear that confining mask. Continue reading Radiation treatment begins: my first session