Halfway through and an ENT update

Today marks the official half-way point in my radiation therapy. And OH am I happy. Course, the worst is probably in front of me, but now I can at least say I'm on the downhill side of this treatment.

The girls at the clinic are still concerned about my red face. I kept telling them not to, but they've asked that I stop using the rose hip oil on the treatment field for a few days to see if that makes a difference. I told them sure, but that I was just about 100% certain that they were seeing what happens to a fair complected green-eyed blonde who never gets out in the sun when she meets a radiation beam on a regular basis. Since it still doesn't hurt, even if it looks like hell, I'll humor them through the weekend and we'll revisit this on Monday.

Once we finished up at Fentress, we had to run over to see Dr. Lehr at Providence hospital (rather than at Hillcrest hospital that is just one parking lot over) for my monthly follow-up.

Dr. Lehr poked around in my mouth and sympathized greatly with the sore mouth/throat. He also prescribed his version of the magic mouthwash that my radiation oncologist has prescribed. This one has nystatin and lidocaine like the other, but also includes liquid tetracycline and prednisone. Randall will pick it up tomorrow, and I'm really hoping for some help because my throat and tongue (I've got a couple of sores on there) have kept me from eating much in the last two or three days. I've lost about 5 pounds since last Thursday, and that's a concern.

I also asked Dr. Lehr about chemotherapy, and he pretty well stopped that idea in its tracks. He said nothing is indicating a need for chemo, so Randall and I have decided to drop the chemo route...at least for now. I know there will be another CT scan done at the end of my radiation treatment, and if things don't look the way they should, we can come back to it then. Dr. Lehr said it would just make what I'm going through now worse and there wasn't a need for it.

Tomorrow I may see Dr. Mundy and, if so, I'll pop in for a quick update. If not, you all have a great weekend and I'll touch base next week.