Warning: This post written under the influence of strong pain killers. May contain unintelligible gibberish, unfinished and/or run-on sentences, or just plain drivel.
I never imagined I would say this, but it seems I now have something in common with Rush Limbaugh: Oxycodone. Since I’d like to limit the things he and I have in common, I’m planning to be careful not to let my use of pain killers turn into an addiction like his.
As of today, I’ve seen three different doctors at the Cancer Center concerning my continuing throat problem. Pretty much all of them agree it’s related to the Xeloda I was taking. What they don’t quite agree on is whether it’s actually thrush, mucositis, or a combination of both. I’ve been taking the meds to treat thrush for five days now with no real improvement. Unfortunately, there’s no particular “treatment” for mucositis – you just have to wait for it to heal, much like a virus.
I took my last Xeloda pill over two weeks ago. Today’s doctor thinks that in about a week the Xeloda will have cleared from my system enough for my throat issues to heal on their own. Meanwhile, I have been unable to eat anything because of the excruciating pain of swallowing, and have continued to lose weight at an alarming rate (105 today). So, the newest approach is to have me take pain killers in order to “minimize the discomfort” of swallowing.
I was instructed to take “1 or 2″ of the Oxycodone pills every four hours. At 1:00 this afternoon, I took my first pill. By 1:30, I still couldn’t swallow, so I took the second pill. By 2:00 I was surprised that I could actually swallow with much less difficulty, and I managed to eat more food during the next half-hour than I’ve eaten over the past four days combined! Wahoo! Then, at 2:30 I passed out in a drug-induced delirium. Four hours later, when I might have taken another dose, I was still completely out-of-it and pretty much unaware of anything but the drool on my pillow.
It’s been about six hours now since I took the Oxycodone and, although I’m certainly more alert, my eyes and limbs are still very heavy. I’ll have to take another dose here shortly in order to eat again, but I’m thinking this time I will just take one pill and wait a little longer to see if it can do the job on it’s own. Otherwise, I’ll be back in Wonderland for the next several hours. If I’m not completely spaced-out over the next few days, I’ll try to give an update on the eating situation. Meanwhile, I’m going to see if I can avoid that rabbit-hole I fell into earlier.
Alice about to take a tumble down the rabbit hole
P.S. – Some of you have already been asking about my office visit with the surgeon, Dr. Rajput. Unfortunately, it didn’t take place (chalk it up to poor communication at UNM). Now I’m scheduled to see him on Wednesday, November 4.
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