The morning after our anniversary party I passed out, cold, in the bathroom–and NOT from drinking, darn it! So the next day, Monday, I called my GP and she ran some blood work etc. and decided that it was low blood pressure and prescribed lots of salt and liquids. The next day I was due for my big barium swallowing exam at JH. I passed with a “C”–normal for someone who has been through the radiation I’ve been through, impaired from actual normal function. But I can swallow and I am moving more and more into solid foods. I have had to give up on the idea that I would go back to work part-time on Monday for a full week. Instead, Beth will drive me in for a 4-hr. day Tues. and Thurs. and we’ll see how that goes.If its good, we’ll try three days the next week and maybe I’ll be on my own by late Feb. In the meantime, I am working from home a few hours a day to get the feel of it. As usual, progress but SO SLOW.

I gained 5.5 lbs. in the past week. Obsessive calorie counting gets the credit. So, no new holes punched and no tubes added. The doc thinks it may take another week or two before the mouth and throat sores go and the taste buds begin to function again, so eating is still a chore, but at least it works, and its not beige liquids! Another doctor (radiation oncologist) on Thursday, and the trips to Baltimore begin to slow down, finally. whew.

We’ve gotten lax with keeping the blog up-to-date…I think its a sign that the feeling of disaster is abating and a more “normal” pace is taking over. Tomorrow I have the big test; did I lose weight during the past week as I have plotted and added each “meal’s” calories? Really, the major item has been “shakes” made with whole milk, dry milk, whey protein, canola oil, and Carnation Instant Breakfast…with some sort of fruit thrown in. Happily, the sores in my mouth and throat are moving into an area that can be numbed with Lidocaine mouthwash, so it is much less painful to put these concoctions down the hatch. If I pass tomorrow, no more threat of tube feeding! It must be a good sign that I’d rather take food by mouth; I remember being happy to have the tube for feeding last fall. Anyway, update tomorrow about whether calorie counting can be a good tool for putting on weight!

Today was another Hopkins run, this time for red blood transfusions. The first good news was that I had gained a little more than a pound since Monday. I am very carefully tracking the calories and working to make sure they tally up to the figures set by the nutritionist, and it is gratifying to feel that its working. Eating is not easy but it beats being hooked to a feeding tube at this point–enough pale beige liquid for one lifetime, I think. Plus I feel much better off the enteric liquids. So, since we were away from home for six hours in the middle of the day and I couldn’t make a lunch smoothie, I had to snack a bit when we got home to get the calorie count up…and I decided to try some Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies, mostly because they are fairly soft and have a hearty calorie number. They went in! First solid food for months! Yes, it hurt, but they did go down. Here’s to incremental improvements