Not Wonderful

Six sessions to go.

Well, I promised that when the bad side effects came along I would report. Keepin' my word, even though it's a downer.

Radiation itself is painless, just like an x-ray (which is really just a lower-voltage version.) But in cases like mine, where it zeroes in on your neck, the pain comes from the damage to your neck and mouth.

Mostly it's back to really, really hating putting anything in my mouth. It isn't loss of appetite. It's anti-appetite. Things taste bad, feel bad, leave a bad feeling which I obsessively try to scrub out with mouthwashes, toothbrushes and hacking and spitting like a geezer in a cornfield. Even water tastes salty and stings, so I've come up with this mixture of baking soda and fake sugar that I mix in, and it stings less. The stinging comes from mouth sores (I know, this is way too much information, but if I go totally sardonic and elliptical with this it will not be true.) The diet is principally Ensure Plus, plus a generic Walgreens version because I'm so cheap and don't care about the taste anyway, and Muscle Milk.

I still have a nostalgic memory about the whole tasty food thing. Pizzas look great. But imagining putting a slice in my mouth... no thanks. I'd as soon bite a squirrel.

My skin is increasing looking burned, although recently some friends said it was more George Hamilton than, say, Geronimo.

The process is literally self-destructive. I am strapped down and letting folks blast away with the intention of killing cells. Some mornings you have to march yourself to the appointment, with part of you screaming that you should turn around - indeed, that you never should have done this in the first place. Radiation creates permanent changes that they can't fully predict. These bad side effects are only going to get worse, for weeks after the treatments end.

The answer to this, as I've said before, is that this beats death, and that's what cancer portends. OK. Hard to grasp, though. At no point in the process have I felt like I was dying.

And there is this glorious silver lining. Despite the tut-tutting of my nurses I have lost a ton of weight, and everyone says I look great. I don't yet feel great, but I see it ahead. Next post: pictures!