Part 10 - WEEK 5 FINISHED

As the feeding bag works by gravity, I needed someting to hang it on. My good friend Wayne Sproule came to the rescue and made the aparatus shown here. Works time a charm. Thanks Wayne



FEEDING TUBE NOW IN PLACE
After last weekend’s sore throat and my inability to eat anything, I was quite happy to have my feeding tube put in. This involved a trip on a stretcher through the underground tunnels from Princess Margaret Hospital to Toronto General Hospital. First the doctor sprayed my throat to freeze it after which he inserted a small tube down into my stomach. Air was put through the tube to inflate the stomach so that after a small incision was made, another tube could be inserted through that opening into the stomach. As a local anesthetic was administered I was awake during the procedure which took about 20 minutes from start to finish. The trip through the tunnels to get there and back took way longer. The hardest thing was that I was not allowed to eat or drink anything for about 36 hours before and after. The following day I was allowed to try the tube and so I had my first ‘bagged lunch’.

RADIATION SIDE EFFECTS
The radiation treatments have caused my neck to become very sore as the skin has dried and started to flake in the creases under my chin. I am constantly applying creams in an attempt to keep the area moist. The other change is that my doctor has changed my pain medication from the Codeine to a liquid Morphine. I was finding that the codeine was very hard to swallow and really didn’t seem to do much to realize my pain. The morphine is much more effective but tends to cause me doze off from time to time. This weekend my brother Michael drove up to stay with me. We didn’t do much accept chat and watch videos but it was so nice to have someone here with me. Thanks Michael for coming, I really appreciated having you here.
Tomorrow it's back to the lodge to start my 6th week of treatments. Almost finished.