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Your tips for recovery after 35 radiation treatments for tonsil cancer
Head & Neck Cancer | Last Active: 4 days ago | Replies (107)Comment receiving replies
@robpara Your success story is always greatly appreciated. Although success in treatment has become more and more common, we often don’t hear about the good ones, only the difficulties.
For me, the physical part eventually worked itself out to an acceptable or comfortable level. The mental aspect however, I’m not sure if that will ever set right. For years now, whenever any health issue persists for more than a normal course, the mind wanders toward cancer. It has been amazingly more than two decades now although repairs have been performed in recent times. I suspect that ongoing awareness of cancer return has kept me vigilant all these years. I just wish that part of recovery would depart as well.
Keep getting better. Enjoy this second life you have earned. Thank you for your updates and kind comments. Good healing.
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@hrhwilliam You are an incredible part of this board. I have tried to find every post you’ve contributed. People like me are standing on your shoulders. Being 67, another 20 years or more would be awesome. And I have hopes that as we make each additional year, the outlook for advancements in treatment increase.
I have probably been in denial of what I have. I have not given it a name. I’ll say things like disease or mass. I also made the choice to only tell a few people. Only one of my brothers for example. I chose the few people based on their positive outlook. I made a few wrong choices - those people all mean well. But when I see them, they always take me back to my “condition” (see what I did there?). And I just want to be treated like I was before. No tilting of the head. No sad look. If I explain my situation, I can start to question it myself and that’s not good. I often give it the most thought late at night and that’s no good for sleep. So I really stay focused on only the one good outcome.
But it is tough on the mind. Friends think about it only when they see you. Your spouse thinks about it often but I really want my wife to not worry of course. For me, it’s reduced from 24/7 during treatment to much much less.
Here’s some more about my experience. The cisplatin - chemo - was not difficult to administer other than my veins were harder to find. They used ultrasound. For the first 4-5 weeks, I would eat food and do work while chatting with my daughter and wife. (I still can’t imagine what Steve Fleury went through with the isolation during Covid) The last weeks were hard to eat food. But if a McDonalds cheeseburger suddenly seemed appetizing, my wife would bring those in. Like you have said, we aren’t worried about healthy eating at this point.
The anti nausea meds in the drip were enough for me. Interestingly, about a week after treatment stopped I noticed a skin breakout like mild acne. First on my chest. Then upper back moving to lower back and then finally my stomach. Less on arms and legs. It was like I was shedding the cisplatin.
Not painful or itchy. Just weird. I believe the body needs time to process this out of your system. I’m not sure how this ties to taste buds.
My visit with the Rehab team was last week. I almost passed on this as my lymphedema seems to be managed through manual massage and the compression mask I wear at night. I will be receiving the pump because I know that they know better.
Sorry if I’m repeating stuff.