Week #4 is done. That means \u00a0Nick has had 20 of 35 radiation treatments and 5 of 8 chemo treatments. We’re very excited that each day brings us closer to completion of these treatments so that we can get \u00a0our lives back. Nick is deeply touched by all the\u00a0warm, heartfelt \u00a0messages from friends and family. Nicholas calls often; Carla sent a goodie box for cancer patients and we immediately made use of its contents, Nick wrapping himself in a soft lightweight blanket while I massaged\u00a0two \u00a0lotions into his feet.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, new side effect are manifesting. Nausea has begun. I’m sure his doctors will have medications for that, and I’m also fairly certain that the nausea medications have improved in twenty-five\u00a0years. \u00a0Another problem is that Nick\u00a0 has lost 4 pounds this week, which equalled\u00a0his total \u00a0weight loss for all of the first three weeks. That’s not\u00a0good for a person who has little excess body weight to lose, but it’s also not surprising.<\/p>\n
Eating gets more and more difficult because of the great pain, \u00a0first when food touches\u00a0\u00a0his mouth, and second when he tries to swallow it. Nick \u00a0has developed a routine for trying to consume food. \u00a0First he mixes his pain-numbing “cocktail” of \u00a0lidocaine, Benadryl and Maalox. After using that, he decides whether he will need a pain pill before or after the “meal.”\u00a0\u00a0Successful meals have consisted of a\u00a0\u00a0few tablespoons of oatmeal thnned with cream, or applesauce. \u00a0He tries to drink \u00a0distilled water throughout the day because its taste is less horrible than tap water. The majority of his diet is\u00a0Boost.<\/em> He started with Boost Glucose Control, \u00a0which is for diabetics. \u00a0Nick conquered diabetes by keeping his weight low, and we wanted to avoid its return. Soon we realized that \u00a0right \u00a0now\u00a0he needs\u00a0more calories, and\u00a0if diabetes becomes a problem, we will deal with that when he’s done with cancer treatments. We switched to Original Boost, which has 240 calories compared to\u00a0Glucose Control’s 190. \u00a0 He has now moved on to Boost Plus, because at 360 calories, \u00a0it gives him\u00a0\u00a0120 more than Original Boost per bottle. But man can’t live on \u00a0three bottles of Boost Plus each day alone.<\/p>\n Drinking for him is easier than eating. He asked for a soft boiled egg, but it required more chewing than he could manage. \u00a0 He gallantly tried a smoothie I made for him, but the brightness of the fruit and veggies I enjoy was far too much for him, and even the tiniest bit \u00a0that got stuck between his teeth made him see stars. Last night’s dinner was a vanilla milk shake. He drank half a cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Week #4 is done. That means \u00a0Nick has had 20 of 35 radiation treatments and 5 of 8 chemo treatments. We’re very excited that each day brings us closer to completion of these treatments so that we can get \u00a0our lives back. Nick is deeply touched by all the\u00a0warm, heartfelt \u00a0messages from friends and family.<\/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-83","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\/83","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=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions\/92"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}