What a crazy ride this has been...

It absolutely blows my mind, that this chapter of my life is now behind me.
I have officially completed 6 weeks of radiation therapy.

Now we wait until May, when I will travel back to Vancouver again for some more Imaging and various tests, and then in June we get the answer to the ultimate question; "Did we beat it?"


This last week was definitely the hardest of them all. The radiation finally started to really take it's physical toll on my body which means a lot more pain, a lot less eating, and a lot more drugs.

Mornings have been the worst. I wake up, and my throat and mouth are so dry they tear each other apart, and I get to spend the first 10 minutes of every morning swollen, in pain, coughing up blood.
Then the drugs start to kick in, and things start to pick up a little. treatments have been making me very nauseous, and yesterday was the first time i finally got the relief of ACTUALLY puking. I know that shouldn't be a relief, but when you've spent a part of nearly every day, for six weeks, in the fetal position and nauseous, puking is definitely a relief. Even if it DOES feel like acid coming up.

My face, neck, chest, and scars look ridiculous right now. Some of it worse than other parts, but for the most part i'm turning purple/black. It FEELS like a really, really, bad sun burn or infection. I'm coughing up parts of my mouth and throat at least 30 times an hr, which eventually leads to more bloody hacking. Keeping down solid food of any sort is VERY hard now, and even Ensure is starting to get hard to take down, because it is so thick, it increases the amount of hacking up I'm doing.

I just realized how much that all sounds like complaining or whining. I hope I don't come across that way, as I try to remind myself daily that it could always be much, MUCH worse. I know that somewhere out there right now, someone is fighting twice as hard for their life as I am mine. I don't mean to in any way downplay my own plight, but I also don't want to label myself a victim.

So. The waiting game begins. A couple weeks of healing, and we will be getting closer and closer to test results. It feels like its going to be a hundred years of waiting, but I thought the same thing 6 weeks ago about getting through treatment, and here I am today.

I will keep this page updated from time to time as updates become available, and more will come in the next few months in terms of how I'd like to use this site as a "go-to" guide for people in similar situations. and once I know what day my test results will be in, I will let you all know.

Thank you again to all who are keeping up to date, and to all who have written, called, and even traveled fair distances just to see me through this. Your interest, compassion, and love has helped me through this fight more than words can express.

Talk soon.
Marcus