Half way!

Today Robin finished radiation treatment #17 which is halfway to November 7th (35 treatments total). Robin's been holding up better than average, and everyone we speak to seems surprised that she's still eating mostly solid (or rather solid soft) food.

The right side of her tongue has several blisters. Apparently her tongue is in the field of radiation so it is purposely exposed to a small amount of radiation each day. Unfortunately she has fillings in her teeth. As the radiation passes through her cheek the portion which hits her fillings gets scattered in many directions. Her tongue and inner cheek which are nearest the fillings end up getting more radiation than planned. The last two treatments they've begun having her insert gauze between her tongue and teeth to increase the distance, thereby decreasing the amount of scatter to her tongue. Robin already wears "dental trays" (they look like a boxer's mouth guard) during radiation so she hasn't really found a comfortable place to fit the gauze in there yet.

She says that she only feels pain when she's talking, or when she is chewing food, so she's speaking less. We have occasional fits and starts of her trying to do charades and then finally telling me what she's trying to communicate. I get the sense that if I don't get better she's going to cut back on speaking anyway. We're thinking of getting one of those kids toys on which you can write and erase words easily - kind of like etch-a-sketch!