Cancer treatments

[Click any of the photos for a full-size image]

Well, as you all know, I am almost through with the second week of my 7 week cancer treatment. Side effects are starting to mount, but I am hanging in there. I get 4 hours of chemotherapy every Monday, and 25 minutes of radiation every day (Monday through Friday). My last day of treatment should be around February 12th. Chemo makes me extremely tired, as well as having lost my appetite. So far no nausea. Radiation has given me a bad case of dry mouth, as the salivary glands are very sensitive to radiation. My taste buds are also being killed by the radiation. I have mostly lost my sense of sweet taste, and many other foods do not taste "right", or just taste bad. In a week or so, I will start feeling a burning sensation in my throat, due to the build-up of radiation. It will feel like a bad sunburn in my throat. This will eventually cause me to start using my feeding tube for nutrition. They also put a "porta-cath" in my chest. It is a small disc that they slid under my skin. Attached to the backside of the disc is a tube which is spliced into a vein that runs straight to my heart. When I go in for chemo treatments, they stick a needle directly into the porta-cath (through my skin) and deliver the chemo. Here's a photo:







Then the radiation...This is a picture of me on the radiation table (in my RAIDERS jersey, of course!). The machine delivers radiation from nine different positions for about a total of 25 minutes every day. They tie my wrists to my feet, so that my shoulders get pulled down, that way they don't block the radiation to my neck. They put the mask over my head and bolt it down so that I can't move during treatment. The tongue depressor keeps my tongue from sliding backwards and getting any more damage from the radiation than is absolutely necessary. Good times....


My Hannibal Lecter mask...