Oops I Did It Again..

Some amazing things had been happening with my eating habits.  I was very close to maintaining the 3000 or so calorie level I kept during treatment but was adding more and more solid foods.  Lots of ice cream, milkshakes, etc.  I couldn't taste anything which really takes a lot of the fun out of meals but I could meet family and friends out on the town and share a meal.  Very, very cool.  I remember asking Dr. K when my taste buds would return and she said four weeks.  Later on, the topic came up at Dr. G's office and I asked him the same question.  His answer was 18 months to 4 years.  Ouch.

Turns out they may both be right.  Robin and I were doing something in Arlington and it got close to lunch time.  We knew there was a Pappasito's very near by and that used to be one of our favorites.  It was always possible that I would be unable to eat whatever I ordered wherever we would have gone, but I was willing to try.  The cheese enchiladas tasted like heaven.  What had tasted like black and white for close to four months now tasted like color in HD.  I still can't do hot....yet.  I miss jalapenos.  Now for the bad news, I still can't taste sweet.  People I have spoken to who would know say that the taste of sweet may be many months to years away.  I will be so happy to have it back when it does come back.

Oops, I Did It Again
I have a morning ritual that I follow almost every day.  Shower, shave my head, dry off, deodorant, walk to closet, underwear, socks, pants, sit down and put on boots, stand up and put on shirt.  Every day, the same ritual.  Well, this morning went in the same order until the "stand up and put on shirt" step.  This day, I stood up and got light headed.  I have been light headed before and I have always just waited a moment and let it pass.  When I came to, I had fallen forward, hit my head on a shelf in the closet and split the skin from the corner of my left eye across the bridge of my nose and cracked my eye orbit. My face was covered in blood by the time Robin got to me.  She had heard the crash and thought I had fallen in the shower.  I knew it wasn't good the moment I woke up.  We dressed the cut and made sure I was otherwise OK.  Then I got something to eat and went on to work.  A week or so after the fall, I noticed that when I dropped my chin to my chest I felt something like an electric shock down my buttocks all the way to my heels.  Great.  Apparently I had hit my head hard enough to pinch a nerve in my neck.  There was no way I was strong enough to deal with anything to do with my neck.  It would have to wait.

As I said a moment ago, I was eating like crazy.  I was not, however, gaining any weight.  Part of me knew that our bodies can use a large amount of calories just repairing itself.  Between the radiation and the chemo, there was plenty to be repaired.  The longer I went without gaining weight the more I started to wonder if there might be something else wrong with me.  There were a couple of other things that had started to have an impact on my attitude at the same time.  My swallowing was NOT coming along at all.  I could chew my food thoroughly and swallow and everything would make it to roughly my Adam's Apple and stop.  No amount of additional swallowing could make it move.  I had to wash every swallow down with a large gulp of water.  With the amount of food I was eating, it took 2 liters of water to get it all down.  It is also a very slow process.  I started becoming a little self conscious about how long it took me to finish a meal.  No one ever said anything but I knew it was a problem.  The ringing in my ears was at max volume and will likely not get better.  I had always accepted it but now adding that on top of everything else and I am suddenly in a pretty deep funk.

Robin had gotten to the point where she strongly urged me to speak with someone and get some help.  I am not one to readily admit I need help and definitely not one to seek it out.  It didn't take long for Robin to convince me it was time do something.  She called national group that helps people with my kind of cancer, SPOHNC.  The folks at Support for People with Oral, Head and Neck Cancer were awesome.  They directed Robin to a support group meeting on a Saturday morning.  By the way, I am also NOT a support group guy.  I went anyway and it was another major turning point in my recovery from treatment.