- Radiation Therapy 14/33
- Chemotherapy(Cisplatin) 2/5
- Pain 4/10
- Mood 4/10
- Energy 5/10
- Side effects 6/10
The effects of radiation are slowly setting in, my neck is more sensitive and my gums are swallowed. From the effects of the Cisplatin were out of body till a new round , i had roughly 1½ day which i enjoyed.
As my tinnitus was getting worse, i mentioned it at the weekly meeting with the doctor and we agreed that i could try one more round and if the tinnitus were still worse, then they would look for an alternative.
Second round was much worse, the flu-effects hit hard, the swallowed gums were even worse and my loss of appetite was magnified, . For three days my only intake was fluid and bananas, i lost about 3 kilos. The weekend was terrible for me and my poor family.
I could feel my limbs were cold due to lack of food and my mood was really dark because i really tried, but could not manage to intake any food. The tinnitus were continuing. When the effects worned out, i managed to eat some food, which immediately helped my mood.
I told my wife that if i did not eat anything or little again for the next round chemotherapy, i would ask for a NG tube also called a nasogastric tube,which is a tube that carries food and medicine to the stomach through the nose. Contrary to the US where the PEG tube is much more used, in Denmark, the NG tube is primarily used for shorter treatment durations like tonsil cancer, when your food intake is too low.
The NG tube has it advantage in it is very easy to “install”, it takes about 1 minute and i did not feel unwell at all. The disadvantage is that it is very visible in your face and the tube in the throat is annoying when you sleep.
Even though i did not like to present this very visible “add-on” to my kids, my mood was relived now that i could bypass the mouth and i could inject food even when i was not hungry.