Radiation day 28 of 35. Chemo week 5 of 7.
After another couple tweaks to my pain management, things are mostly stable now. The headaches have become far less frequent, and thanks to my ridiculous-looking gel pack head wrap contraption, easier to address.
The doctors and nurses have warned quite clearly that we are not out of the woods. When active treatment ends, the pain and side effects can linger on for weeks. And we will not have any conclusive results for at least 12 weeks afterwards. Three months of hopeful waiting and recovery, keeping my mind off of the nagging elephant in the room.
Keeping my weight up is the current challenge. My milk allergy precludes me from utilizing all the usual tools in the kit — the Ensures, Boosts, Benecals, and more all have milk in them. Nature’s most calorie-dense food, evolved to get newborn calves up to a healthy weight as quickly as possible, are off-limits to this human. How tragic.
Plenty of non-dairy substitutes exist, but none pack in the calories like glucose-fortified milk fat products. I’m back to what I used to weigh in my 20’s. There’s only so many of these plant-based smoothies I can tolerate in a day…