Hopefully by then I'll be able to start eating again. I've almost completely stopped eating solid food now (the insides of my gums are very sore now, so eating anything salty is akin to salting a wound.... horrendous), instead relying on these nutrition drinks for, basically, everything.
The painkillers I have been using are strong, as I said before. They've been so good in numbing the intense pain that was brewing at the start of the week, but it must be said that I feel like I'm living a weird existence due to how strong they are, trapped inside my own little bubble of cotton wool. There's also a set regime now to using them daily. All of this I'd like to write down so I remember this later on in my life.
In the morning, I'll wake up in quite intense pain - it kind of feels like knives in my throat (or, as I prefer to say although most people won't get the reference, like my throat has transmogrified into the sarlacc). I'll get up and do my artificial spit swishing, whilst dissolving an effervescent painkiller in some blackcurrant cordial and water. After swishing I'll (very slowly) drink down the painkiller. Every sip is fairly agonising, and I normally have to stop for a couple of minutes midway to let the pain go away - this morning I gagged a bit and started to cry (not blubbering sadness, just involuntarily from the pain in my throat). Upon finishing the cocodamol, I'll then start to disperse the aspirin in the Mucilage mixture whilst I get my things ready to leave. Finally, I'll try to gulp down the Mucilage in two gulps before leaving, slowly drinking one of the protein shakes as I walk down to the DLR.
By the time I reach work (having chewed gum on the tube in to get the saliva going) my mouth feels a bit more numb. I'll drink some coffee (with cold water mixed in to get it to lukewarm temp) and continue to chew gum. By 11/12, I'll be hungry, but won't be able to eat until the 1, when it'll have been 5 hours since my last cocodamol / Mucilage combo and I'll be able to mix it again. I do, and after I've downed it I will run out to see if I can get anything I can process for lunch. I can just about 'eat' soup, and slippery things like raw fish (I've picked up some salmon sashimi (raw salmon, Japanese style)) the last few days, but a things have to be timed for my painkillers to kick in, which is a weird experience.
I'll walk to radiotherapy about 3:30, getting there for 4. I'll lie motionless, lost in my own thoughts, as the machine deposits its radiation in my cells. I get the tube home, very hungry now, and have a nutrient shake to supplement me (and stop me feeling faint). By 6:30-7, it's time for another cocodamol / Mucilage combo (after another swish with the artificial spit), and a quick race to force down anything I can - a really soft roll smeared ('fortified', as the NHS literature puts it) with cream cheese dipped in tomato soup is all I can manage, until my gums start complaining (despite the numbing effect of the pain killers - revealing how much is actually being blocked out) and I chuck away the soup in favour of a few scoops of froyo.
Before bed, I'll swish again and, at the last possible moment (probably about 11:30, when I'll be in a fair bit of pain because the painkillers will have worn off and my digestive juices will be irritating my gullet a bit) I'll mix a cocodamol and drink it before sleeping... the painkiller will help me fall into a sleep. It's never dreamless; I'll dream of lots of things; having hair, smoking, people who cared for me; foreign lands; happiness. I'll wake up in pain and go to the toilet twice a night, and force some water down my aching throat; the painkillers only dull so much.
I'll wake up each day in quite intense pain; but it'll be another day closer to the end of treatment and the resumption of normal life.
Tom
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