The new routine

With two radiations and a chemo under my belt, I for some reason felt remarkably good.  I was still eating pretty much whatever I wanted and in large quantities.  Everyone at the clinic was stressing to me how important it was to keep my weight up especially after denying the feeding tube.

I also started settling into a routine that would continue for the next two months.  My appointment for radiation therapy was at 4:45 so every day at around 3:00 I would start doing the mental math of how long it would take to get to Las Colinas from wherever I happened to be working that day.  Once I arrive at the clinic I sign in at the front desk and then go on back to a much smaller waiting room for the radiation suite.  Everyone who is in therapy has a standing appointment for the machine so the people waiting with me that first week would become very familiar as we would pass each other every day.  On Wednesdays, I had a brief meeting with the radiation oncologist Dr K.  She would ask how I was doing, poke around on my neck and look in my mouth.  She would also weigh me.  Thursdays, I met with Doogie and he asked some of the same questions but was a little more interested in chemo related stuff.  They also took blood for labs which they performed while I waited and gave me a printout of the results.  The chemo can be rough on kidneys and also affects the bone marrow which affects white blood cell count.

Like I said, I felt great but as early as day four of treatment I had one side effect from the chemo.  I have always had tinitis, ringing in my ears.  I can honestly trace it back to an Aerosmith concert when I was a sophmore in high school.  Anyway, seemingly overnight the ringing at least doubled in volume.  I mentioned it to T and she kinda freaked out a little, which scared me.  I remember she made a shocked face and said "Already?".  That can't be good.  Go home and google Cisplatin (again) and there it is in black and white under side effects: loss of hearing.  There is currently no guard against the loss or way to recover it.