On Wednesday August 13, Nick saw Dr. M, one of his glaucoma doctors. He was concerned that the chemo and radiation might be having an adverse effect on his glaucoma.\u00a0\u00a0Dr. M. did not find that to be so. In fact, Nick’s oncologist, Dr. N., suggested that Nick take magnesium, and \u00a0Dr. M. said that magnesium could have a positive effect on his\u00a0eyes.<\/p>\n
Nick\u2019s ability to taste sour (acidic) foods has returned, and as with saltiness, acidic foods have a \u00a0much more intense\u00a0and less pleasant \u00a0taste than they would typically have. We are slowly adding more variety\u00a0 to his diet with the addition of foods\u00a0he is able to eat without difficulty or displeasure. This week he ate scrambled eggs that tasted, to him, close to typical. Cantaloupe worked well as\u00a0his first fruit, but pineapple was far too acidic. He was able to eat \u00a0ground beef stroganoff, made with sour cream and served over noodles. For lunch he enjoys his old “guilty pleasure,”\u00a0\u00a0mac and cheese, which he gave up when he was diagnosed with diabetes. Before cancer, Nick would typically eat and enjoy an appetizer, salad, entree and dessert for dinner. Right now\u00a0\u00a0he is eating about a third to a half of a typical entree portion\u00a0with no other courses, but it’s a start.<\/p>\n
We have resumed our social life. At The Levitt Pavillion,<\/em> our town hosts\u00a0free entertainment under the stars for 60 \u00a0summer nights. On Tuesday night, we went to Comedy Night with my friend and former neighbor, Mary. How good it feels to laugh!<\/p>\n I run a \u201cDinner and\u00a0Theater\u201d group for my \u00a0former colleagues thanks to TDF\u2014The Theatre Development Fund. We typically go to the city \u00a0together a few times\u00a0each year. When I receive a group offer I will always accept. This is in fulfillment of my New Year’s Resolution\u2014have more fun. \u00a0This week only one other member of\u00a0the teaching staff\u00a0planned to attend with me. She had to cancel, so I took Nick in her place, not knowing if he would be able to eat dinner at a restaurant\u00a0or if he would be able to stay awake during the show. We went to one of our favorite theater district restaurants, Osteria al Doge.<\/em> The chef was accommodating when Nick asked for pasta cooked \u00a0beyond “al dente.” He was able to eat most\u00a0of it. He loved my entree, grilled calamari, because it tasted almost typical to him. Nick adores dessert but he could eat no more, and there was no point in ordering it anyway,\u00a0\u00a0because he has no taste for sweetness yet.<\/p>\n The show we saw was Bullets Over Broadway,<\/em> a very funny musical comedy written by Woody Allen from a 1994 movie that’s set in the Twenties, with \u00a0familiar songs from that era. \u00a0It still has the original cast, one nominated for a Tony. Nick loved it! I had been worried that he would fall asleep from the exhaustion of the trip and the late hour, but\u00a0our first big night out was a huge success. All the Broadway theaters\u00a0emptied onto the street at the same time,\u00a0so we were in a huge crowd of literally thousands of theater goers mixed with tourists. The NYC police brought in their mounted police in order to get the streets clear enough for vehicles to get through. Even with all that, we made our return train without a problem.<\/p>\n I went back to Dr. H. on Wednesday because I thought I had\u00a0thrush once again. Instead it\u2019s\u00a0\u00a0something called \u201cgeographic tongue,\u201d \u00a0a condition that presents with areas of whiteness on the tongue \u00a0but no pain. It’s\u00a0neither serious nor contagious and requires no medications.<\/p>\n Nick gained seven tenths of\u00a0a pound this week. We’re hoping for more of a weight gain next week!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Wednesday August 13, Nick saw Dr. M, one of his glaucoma doctors. He was concerned that the chemo and radiation might be having an adverse effect on his glaucoma.\u00a0\u00a0Dr. M. did not find that to be so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nicks-progress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions\/206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}