Little Things

It's strange how things work out. I was having a lot of pain in my mouth so my doctor prescribed morphine. I was pleased that she was attentive enough to my issues to do so without the whole hemming and hawing about addiction and stuff that my surgeon was going through - and that, three or four days after cutting my face in half and burrowing up near my skull. Oddly, the day after I filled the prescription, the pain subsided enough to where I don't need the morphine. I haven't even had to take the vicodin.

Unfortunately, the pain was replaced by some pretty harsh heartburn/acid reflux. Nothing seems to alleviate it. I have Prilosec and anti-nausea meds and Tums, but nothing really helped. I'm feeling like this is my version of chemo nausea, as it does feel like my stomach wants to get rid of what's in it, but I don't throw up. I can count on one hand how many times I have in my life. The feeling has lessened a lot since yesterday, but the thought of waking up knowing that I had aspirated into my lungs a little in my sleep was enough to keep me awake most of the night. From my research, I'm keenly aware that the last few treatments are often the time of the most vulnerability to things like pneumonia and other problems associated with lowered immune systems combined with issues like I was having.

On top of that, I was having issues with my stomach today that I hadn't experienced before. I've lost more weight lately than I'm comfortable with and have been trying to force myself to eat enough, but while using the feeding tube today, my stomach seemed to rebel at the fact that I simply do not throw up and took matters into it's own...hands. While feeding myself, my stomach basically started pushing what I had just put in, back out! My damn liquid meal just started overflowing out of the Bolus syringe and onto my lap! So gross and a bit unsettling. It happened twice before I gave up. It could have been just air pushing back out through the feeding tube, but no air seemed to come out, just the Fibersource food.

I managed to get some in me without incident later on this evening, so I'm thinking it did have something to do with the stomach issues I was having. Hopefully it's a one-time occurrence. I'm already paranoid about the feeding tube enough as it is without issues like this cropping up.

On a much more positive note, my daughter finally made it here and we spent the day together with my parents and then to see Harry Potter. It's only been a couple of months but with all that's going on it seems like I hadn't seen her in forever. That and the fact that I only have 4 more radiation treatments combine to make a very happy Guy.