Treatment End of Week #4 - Stupid Medical Equipment Tricks

My weight "gain" in my last post didn't take into account the constipation factor. I'm not gaining weight. Instead, I'm down about 10 pounds overall.

I'm still trying to figure out what is setting me on edge. It might be a couple of the meds that are doing it (one for nausea, one for other stomach issues). In the mean time, the radiation nurses are cranking up the music volume for me.

Laying on my back continues to work well to relieve the pain from my liver pressing on the feeding tube.

The hair on my neck where the radiation is being applied is starting to fall out. The skin is also starting to be painful like a bad sunburn.

I have started to have Tinnitus in both ears.

I have a device that is a vacuum pump used to suction thickened saliva out of my mouth. It kind of looks like a small air compressor but it has a can to catch all the crud. It's very similar to the tool used by dentists to clear your mouth. I used it last week to clear my mouth and that worked pretty well. But I still had a buildup of crud a little ways down my throat. I put the end of the wand as far back on my tongue as I could stand and then closed my lips. Bad move. The suction device turns out to work pretty well as a stomach pump. I managed to start the pumping of the contents of my stomach and then my stomach did the rest of the job. Yuck.

The other stupid thing I did was to re-use a bag for my formula. They gave me a 30 day supply and I'm not sure how tough it will be to get more so I rinsed one out and filled it up with more formula. Within four minutes of starting the pump I was at the sink vomiting up whatever had been in my stomach. I don't re-use bags any more.