the week from ellensberg (for those not familiar with Washington, not a great place)

warning: sensitive material, don't read if sensitive stomach

I am in a good mood for now, so I am going to strike while the iron's hot and get a blog in. The amount of blogging in the future may depend on herculean task of U of A beating UCLA in basketball tonight. The Cats are looking good, but lilliputian good compared to UCLA.

This week proved to be quite trying. I had to do the chemo with the radiation this week. The deal is that once every three weeks I have to do chemotherapy. The chemo involves one dose of Cisplatin that I get sitting down; it takes about an hour. Then, for four days straight I get 5-FU. As Dominic pointed out, any drug ending in FU is bound to knock you around harder than the late great Dale Earnhardt. I got the 5-FU off today, and got a liter of fluids and am finally feeling a lot better. Despite throwing up while getting the pump off, and throwing up heavily every day this week, I am finally starting to get more strength. Part of this is due to the fact that I started to use my PEG-tube/Gastroenterology tube. Basically, it's my feeding tube that Jenny nicknamed Peggy. I can't say I enjoy using it. It's pretty degrading, so I don't let people watch, but Peggy gets the job done. She's been the only way I have been able to keep food down. Although, by food I mean Ensure, or Ensure mixed with something like vitamin water. Once I can go 24 hours without throwing up I am going to try and eat something again.

For some reason, my throat and mouth aren't as sore as they use to be, so I think I could eat solid foods. The one problem is that my taste buds are all thrown off. I had a Sprite this morning, which I drank because the carbonation makes me feel better, but I couldn't taste any sweetness. It just tasted like carbonated water. Looking back, I have strong suspicions the Sprite was the culprit in my morning gut heaving. But, my point is that I have almost no taste, but I do have really strong cravings, which is why I got the Sprite in the first place. My mom just mentioned she almost got tuna fish, and that's all I have been able to think about. It sounds so good, but it's probably just as well I can't eat it, since it wouldn't taste like I imagine.

I am really looking forward to this all being over with, for the simple reason of being able to eat what I want, whenever I want, and to be able to enjoy it. Of course, for those who keep my nutruition in check, this does not mean McDonald's for dinner every night, but it does mean biscuits n' gravy if I feel like biscuits n' gravy.

Brian, your comment about this being the point in the race where your language and demeanor changes is quite punctilious. This week was a real struggle, but I am going to take these two days of rest and fight hard this next week. It will be nice to just have the radiation and not the chemo and radiation at the same time. This is definitely harder than I ever thought, but we don't have too much longer to go.

Thanks for all your support and comments. Each one means the world to me, and while I would have liked to have posted more frequently, I wasn't feeling well, but reading your comments really helped.