Chemo didn’t happen last week because the white cell count was too low. We are planning to try again tomorrow. If the white cells are again too low, then I think we are done with chemo.
Meanwhile my wife says she has lost 30 pounds since being diagnosed with her cancer again. Previously, I told her that I expect her to lose 50 to 60 lbs. before this “treatment” is over.
Eating is literally a pain. She has to take medicine just to allow her to eat. Foods (more correctly liquid substances that she eats in place of food) cause pain when she swallows them, and the pain continues all the way to her stomach. The amount of distress that she endures is amazing. She is happy and positive even in the face of the difficulties that she is experiencing. A side effect of the medicine is that she is sleeping much of the day. She is also weak.
I think she is beat up and broken and part of me hopes the chemo is over. I think we have crossed the line between medical care and torture, at this point it is simultaneously both.
Her radiation burns are slowly healing. The two open sores are healing up and get new dressings on them each day. The discolored skin is still visible but improving. You just can’t help but wonder what the tissue inside her body looks like if the outside is this messed-up.