Things are going “OK” for the most part. I’ve been taking it really easy the last few weeks relaxing on my massage chair most of the day and walking down the hallways of my apartment every now and then. I don’t tend to get as tired and out of breath as before, which is good, but I still find it uncomfortable to walk – I feel ‘tightness’ around my abdomen (because of the incisions) so I tend to walk slow while leaning forward. There are other annoying inconveniences I have to deal with. For one, I’m chained to my feeding machine most of the day – 18 hours out of the day; and it’s so noisy that I have to wear ear plugs when I sleep! The worst part so far is that I’ve partially lost my voice (every time I try talking I feel like coughing). How I managed to phone my insurance, talk with EDD, talk to my doctors, and setup appointments is a near miracle. Pain is the other thing I have to deal with. The first two weeks I had no problem with pain, but just this week I started to feel pain around my abdominal incisions. I’m taking vicodin which helps.
One bit of good news is that I finally got my Jackson-Pratt drain removed from my neck after my surgeon finally cleared me to start a liquid diet by mouth. I can finally start drinking water!! Yay! It feels great to finally get to taste food again, albeit liquid. By Monday I should be able to start soft-solid foods! So far swallowing liquids isn’t any different than before surgery. I’ll let you all know how it goes with solid foods.
I also received final news on the pathology report of my esophagus. The tumor went through all layers of the esophagus but was shrunk to within the walls by chemo-radiation. Preliminary results which I received last week noted no lymph nodes affected, but further tests showed that one lymph node had cancer in it. All margins were clear so they’re pretty confident that they got everything. Now all I need to worry about is a re-occurance.
Diary of events of my life with esophageal cancer.
Joseph Jesena (j o e at j e s e n a dot com)
