Weekend rest before the last radiation

Robin will complete her last radiation treatment tomorrow (Monday the 6th). The clinicians noted that her symptoms may get worse for up to a week after radiation and that it will be two to four weeks before she's healed. Her right cheek is quite crimson and the tip of her right ear looks as if it has a summer tan. I guess they've been slowly baking her in that radiation machine.

This week her secretions have been getting very thick. This is caused by reduced output of her salivary glands and probably she's a little dehydrated. Her nutrition is primarily the liquid food supplements put into her feeding tube. Saturday morning she threw up after the first can of the day (in one way and out the other!), but she held down the others. She also drinks a few glasses of Gatorade each day - she tossed up a bit of that last night too. Going to bed she had three small pills to take. Sitting on the couch, she held them in her hand for about five minutes before taking the first one, then waited two to three minutes more before taking the next two. Then she leaned on me for about twenty minutes waiting to make sure her stomach had settled.

She still has pain and nausea. The pain comes and goes occasionally and is now a little more intense ("4 out of 10"), though she also has periods with no pain. The nausea often occurs just from standing up. We agreed to go for a walk yesterday, but once she stood up she no longer felt up to it. The thick secretions are the most persistent problem during the day and often cause her to gag.

Today we'll go back to New York City for tomorrow's final treatment! We'll go late in the day, hoping to miss the traffic caused by the marathon.