Long time!!

Since I've been here. I went into the hospital again on June 24th with infection in my mouth. Staph. Thankfully I caught it in time that it didn't get too far gone. I was out of the hospital in 4 days and have been packing the infection area since. Probably a good thing I never get sick because I haven't taken antibiotics for about 15 years, if not more. They had me on two kind of antibiotics through my IV. One was vancomycin, which is specifically for resistant staph infections. I was scared I tell ya. I thought for sure my flap (skin graft in my mouth) was failing. Then when I was told that wasn't happening I then started thinking they wouldn't be able to control the infection and the antibiotics would damage my kidneys etc. OMG

I'm back to work too. I feel tired halfway through the day but nothing major. I figure my radiation and chemo will start in a couple weeks. I had to have 3 teeth pulled so they are waiting for those to heal before I start. The teeth were pulled because radiation could have caused problems with them. If I ever have to have a tooth pulled in the future I am taking a chance I will lose my jawbones because jawbones don't heal after radiation and they get infected. Great. Another thing to worry about. I have to do fluoride treatments 3 times a day during radiation and  2 times a day for the rest of my life. I picked up my mouth trays Thursday. I will also have to go to my dentist every 3 or 4 months for the rest of my life.

I will get cisplatin as my chemo drug. I will get 100 units on day one of radiation, 100 units on day 22 of radiation and 100 units on the last day of radiation-day 43. I will have radiation 5 days a week for 6 1/2 weeks. They are giving me the largest dose of chemo they can. I may lose my hearing, I will have no muscle mass when I'm done, possible tingling or burning feeling in my hands and feet and possible kidney damage. I will be on a saline IV for two days after each chemo treatment to flush my kidneys. I was told that by the end of chemo I may not even be able to get up out of a chair. My white blood cell count will be exceedingly low too. Hey! The bright side is that cisplatin doesn't usually cause significant hair loss! I guess it will get thinner and I will also lose some from the radiation that will hit in the back of my head.

I just hope after all this I'm not told I only have a few months to live. My cancer is far more advanced than they had expected.