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What happens during radiation for esophageal cancer?
My husband has stage 3 esophageal cancer diagnosed December of 2023. He began chemo in January of 2024 getting that treatment every other week for over 2 years now. Well now the cancer is slowing growing and affecting his swallowing. Food is getting stuck causing him to throw it back up. The doctor has decided to do radiation for the first time. I was wondering about what happens during radiation. Will his throat swell? I heard it would and there would be scaring. The doctor has mentioned this as well but I am a little worried about it closing up all the way! He said he would have to be on liquids eventually. I see a lot of your stories are chemo and radiation together and I was just wanting to hear about it first hand from someone going through it. Thank you for any insight you can give. he starts on March 23rd.
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@cottonsunflower
Sending hugs to both of you.
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1 Reaction@ryc I was wondering when we would see changes. Today is day 10. He is supposed to get 27 treatments, 5 days a week. his swallowing is still pretty bad and I am not sure what to expect going forward.
For my husband, things became tougher after the second week of treatments. His ability to swallow became worse and we had to resort to smoothies and soups. Panera Mac and cheese worked for a little bit. After the full course of radiation, he developed a spasm in his chest which made it difficult for him to even swallow his saliva and he required the use of an NG tube and gravity feeding along with IV hydration through his port every day. He wasn't able to tolerate the NG tube, so they changed it into an NJ (nasojejunum) tube which he tolerated much better. He lost about 60 pounds during this time and the palliative care team was wonderful helping with the pain. About three weeks ago (after 82 days of a feeding tube and daily IV hydration) he was able to start eating again. I'm happy to say that he is gaining weight and can eat anything he wants. It's been long road though. The tumor and the lymph nodes in his chest and abdomen have decreased quite a bit. The did not do a scan right away after treatments as they said that the effects of the radiation would not give an accurate picture. We had to wait about 3 months post radiation before having the first scan.
I would recommend Aquaphor and lots of lotion on the areas that are undergoing radiation. We put on the lotion at first and then the Aquaphor on top of the lotion. My husband developed quite a "burn" from treatment on his neck. He also developed a rash on his abdomen (his field was described as the largest they had seen at Mayo). I think there might have been a cream that they recommended for that, but I'll have to check on it.
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2 ReactionsThank you for all of this information. I want to be prepared for anything.
@cottonsunflower
Please feel free to reach out any time. I didn't find this group until after chemo and radiation, and I felt a little lonely in all of this.
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2 Reactions@cottonsunflower Makes sense. They would have to rely on chemo and immuno, anyway, so not much point in putting him through a esophagectomy...