Well, there's really not much new to report except that I am a week closer to being done.

My last day of radiation is Wednesday, September 21, which means that I have eight treatments left. When I was at the hospital for my treatment on Friday, they took another round of films (basically x-rays) to make sure that things are still going well. To be honest, I have no idea what they are looking for when they take these pictures--I know it is not for the presence of cancer because that is not visible. Anyway, they took another round of films because apparently my treatment will be altered slightly--it's nothing changed from the original plan, but this is the first time I've heard about it. I don't know if it will make the treatments shorter, longer, unchanged, different angle, or what--all I know is that it will be different for the last four days of the treatment. So that means that Monday through Thursday of this week should be same old, same old. And then the new setup on Friday through Wednesday.

My last day of chemotherapy is Tuesday, September 20--that is assuming that the doctors elect to not change or discontinue the chemotherapy which is still a possibility, albeit a remote one. Chemo is still only once a week for me and that day is obviously Tuesday. For some reason, they seem to have problems finding a good vein for my IV. Last week they stuck me four times trying to find a good vein that was comfortable for me. They always like to go after these two veins that I have near my wrists that are easy to identify--the only problem is that it really hurts to have a needle in these particular places. So every week I go through the same thing: they eye one of those two good veins, I tell them that it won't work and that they need to go higher, they start looking higher and can't find much, they ask how far down they can go, and before I know it I'm in a negotiation over where they get to stick me with a needle. It can be pretty frustrating because every morning before I can get my chemo, I need to have blood drawn down in the lab. The technicians in the lab are the best at sticking me, believe it or not, but for reasons that I can only imagine are bureaucratic, they cannot leave the needle in my arm from my blood work in the morning to the time that I get my chemo.

The side effects from the radiation and chemotherapy are steadily getting worse. This time, however, it seems to be getting worse on the outside. As crazy as it sounds, I feel lucky about that because the mouth pain is just too much after a while. My skin looks really sunburned now with one patch affected much more than the rest--so much so that it will bleed from time to time. Also, I continue to lose more facial hair which creates a weird pattern of growth if I don't shave for a few days. I'm pretty sure that I haven't caught everyone who has done a doubletake. The dry mouth is also getting worse and it wakes me up almost on the hour every night--I still drink a lot of water and use a special mouth wash and take my salivary gland prescription, but the effects are still pretty obvious. A somewhat new development is almost a total loss of taste which makes eating even harder. I made a fun discovery yesterday, however. I woke up from another one of my long naps with an urge to get some Chicken McNuggets. Luckily, there is a McDonald's not too far away and I went and got a 10-piece order and they went down great--it was an easy 500 calories! So I'm thinking that today I'll go and get a 20-piece order. It's even more important for me to get as much food down as possible considering that I've lost 16 lbs so far. Can you believe that??? 16 lbs...it's not like I had a lot of extra weight to begin with! I've never really liked being thin and now it just makes me hate it even more. The last noteworthy side effect is fatigue. The amount of time I've slept the last few weeks has got to set some kind of record. It really has been quite amazing. I'll usually get 12 hours of sleep a night--of course, the sleep is interrupted--and then I'll take a 2-3 hour nap, sometimes two of them, during the day. The rest of the time I eat and make sure that I'm taking my medicine. It really is like a full-time job.

So that's my update.

8 Days.