Deported

My port is gone, which is wonderful since I am a stomach sleeper and my port made that quite inconvenient.  Getting it taken out got a little interesting.  Readers of this blog know that interesting equals painful.   When my port was put in, I was under general anesthesia.   That means I was asleep-ish, and don’t remember anything about it.   I blacked out in one room, and awoke in another.   I imagine that a trip to Tijauna is much the same way.   When I had my port removed, however, I was under a local anesthesia.   It was in the doctor’s office, and I was awake and talking to him the whole time.   He gave me the local anesthesia by way of a syringe, and started to prep the area.   He made the first incision, and I then realized that I had not gotten enough of the local anesthesia.  Ouch.    He gave me another shot or two, and waited a few minutes for the medicine to work.   He was very apologetic.  Honestly, the shot hurt worse than the incision, but I was quite concerned for the rest of the procedure.  He pulled, sliced, twisted, and cut the port out, cauterized a vein, and sewed me up.  I celebrated by having a Mexican lunch with Malena and a friend.   It was good.

I have taken 14 of my 18 radiation treatments.   I get these every weekday, and I am in the hospital for about 30 minutes each time.  Usually the treatments are in the afternoon, but sometimes I get rescheduled for the morning.   The third treatment was a morning treatment, and took advantage of that by scheduling my port removal immediately after.   Two hospitals in one day.   If that is some sort of record, I don’t want it. 

The radiation is going fairly well,  but I started to come down with some side effects last week.   Six days of the following fun things:

1.  Sore throat

2.  Constant feeling that food is caught in the back of my throat.

3.  Dry mouth.   Like the Sahara in August.

4.  I cannot taste food.

These side effects will persist for weeks after my last treatment, which is Monday.   The worst one is not being able to taste food.   I like food.   I like it so much that I try to eat it several times a day.    But these are the problems of the living.   So I will take them and deal with them. 

I am in the home stretch of my treatment.   I think I have this thing beaten, but it is ‘wait and see’ from here on out.   I will have a PET scan in a couple of months, and quarterly visits to my oncologist.   If nothing shows up after 5 years, I think they will call me cured.  

Take that, cancer!