Chemo Part II/Spirit In The Sky

This is chemo day part II, or two down, one to go. According to my blood tests I am pretty close to ‘normal’ so I don’t expect there will be adjustments to the chemo treatment. The first one hit pretty hard in feeling invaded and waves of different energy every few minutes for a few days.The nausea was managed well by some meds from the Dr. I am three weeks into the radiation treatments and feel weak from that. I sense that I have a body memory of the first chemo. The last couple days my body has been anticipating the impact of the chemo and I felt weak with little waves of nausea. So it comes a a big surprise that the chemo goes really well. I do not feel nausea during the 5.5 hours of IV infusions. The chemo MD and nurse say I am doing well and for once it doesn’t seem like they put on a fake cheery face for a patient. They do say it will get worse before it gets better but it is good that I am still eating and have not lost much weight and my body is handling the chemo treatment well.

I have enough energy to walk three blocks for my radiation treatment (16 down, 19 to go) and the rad techs, again, ask about music choices, I, again, say Beatles please. But their music streaming channel must be ‘Beatles era’ not pure Beatles and I hear Yesterday, then a Led Zeppelin number, then Spirit In The Sky and then Yesterday again. 

Now those are good songs but I have mixed emotions about Spirit In The Sky. You know about mixed emotions? There is one definition I like: “when your 16 Year old daughter comes home at 4 AM carrying a Giddeons Bible”. Its kind of like that. Spirit In the Sky is a great song, truly inspirational. Just maybe not the one I want to hear locked in a clanging  X-ray machine with 7,000 RADs slamming through. “Take me up, Spirit in the sky’” and “I’ve got a friend in Jesus’; yes, seems true to me, just not right now please. How about sending some healing rays?

As it is Wednesday we meet with a staff rad MD. We are doing all the right things and if I can keep my weight up I may not need a feeding tube later as some people require. And post treatment recovery is better for those who keep eating and keep their weight up. She says the throat discomfort is part of the process but does prescribe a mouth treatment that it is hoped will numb things enough to keep me eating. And she suggests another skin cream to help manage the eternal radiation burn on my neck. I keep downing liquid protein drinks, need to hit 2,000 calories a day. Maybe the Spirit In The Sky is sending me protein drinks. The Spirit looks a lot like Susan.

Spirit In The Sky: https://tinyurl.com/3k35a22h