Tomorrow – Jan 30th- will be Robert’s last radiation treatment. He had his last chemo a week ago. That wraps up 7 weeks of treatment – 35 radiations and 3 chemos. Thank goodness that we’re finally at the end! Now the rebuilding will begin.
For those of you who have not seen him, or haven’t been in touch with me, the sum is that he is now about 24 lbs lighter – so you can imagine how thin that is. He is very weak, his strength has slipped away and a walk around the block takes every bit he has. He sleeps a lot, and is looking forward to eating again. His throat is very red and sore – inside and out, and we’re working on sloughing off the dead burned skin cells on the outside and rebuilding fresh pink ones.
He has lost the hair around the base of his hair line in back and they said that he most likely will never be able to grow a beard (oh well! ) now. His voice is strained due to very sore throat, but that should be changing soon.
We’re told that it’ll be 2 weeks or so before he really feels a change in his strength or overall health, because the radiation continues to do its stuff for that long afterward, but that in 4 weeks “you’ll feel 100% better”( from the radiologist). Whatever the case, we’re going to be working on assisting him to eat. That has been the main issue as the product that he is fed through the feed tube in his stomach upsets him and he hates it. Swallowing is a challenge though he is doing a little every day.
Last we heard the tumors were 90% shrunk – and that was over a week ago. They said that he has responded very well – best they have ever seen in fact. I have high hopes that this will be the only round of treatments!
Life will begin again, headed toward some semblance of ‘normalcy’, officially on Tues – at least that is what we’re calling for. It’s Freedom Day! We are both thinking of how to symbolically celebrate it – that he can do – and yet make it a milestone. Still working on ideas there!
Many many thanks to everyone who has participated in this journey with us, for it has been a journey! The rides, the meals, the prayers and good thoughts, the phone calls to check in with me and see if I have been holding up have all been so deeply appreciated! I will let you know how the healing goes, and hope to renew my blogging before too long!!!
With deepest gratitude~
xo
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