Update after 20 of 30 radiation treatments

Tuesday, August 3, 2010.

Today, I have completed 20 of 25 of the intensity modulated radiation treatments.  This will be followed by five electron beam treatments.

Before I get into a discussion of my recent visits to the radiation oncologists, I would like to discuss some of the activities which went on this weekend.

Brian, my middle son, who lives in Vancouver, came to visit.  We had a very nice visit with him.  On Saturday, we went to visit with Gary and Dana, where we had another small party in honor of Bel's first birthday.  Dana's parents were there.  They visited from Valencia, California.  Eva and Sara were there, of course,  and Gary's first wife, Margaret Eva,s mother was also was there.  We had a nice time and again, cake was served.  Unfortunately, I could not enjoy the cake.

On Sunday, we did video chats, first with Mike and Leanna, Sammie and Eli.  Brian was also able to participate.  This was followed by a video chat with my mother in Montreal.  My sister Ellie was there visiting from Edmonton Alberta.  Her daughter Cheryl was there with her newborn baby, whose name is David.  He is not named after me.  This was my first chance to see him.  I have to say that the innovations in modern electronics are wonderful for families were separated by so much distance.  Here, we were able to share video and chat with people living in Philadelphia, Vancouver, Montréal, and Edmonton.  I can only imagine what my grandparents on my fathers side who left their families behind in Russia, and moved to the New World, would think.  How they would have loved to have been able to communicate like this!

I have sufferred from most of the expected symptoms of radiation treatment.  The one which I have managed to avoid is the fatigue described by many.

The most distressing of all the symptoms is the loss of sense of taste.  In fact, it is worse than merely the loss of sense of taste.  Everything tastes bad.  The way described it to my wife is for her to imagine that everything she ate tasted like cantaloupe.  She hates cantaloupe.

The next distressing symptom is a very dry mouth.  In spite of multiple rinses, drinking lots of water, the dryness continues.  This also seems to result in a sore throat, although my throat has markedly improved since the first week of radiation treatment.

A new symptom which I have developed is some kind of painful lesion in my nose on the right.  Dr. Lee, the radiation oncologist, who was filling in for Dr. John yesterday, thinks it might be a viral herpes simplex.  I have had occasional herpes simplex infections on my lip, and I have had a similar condition and my nose two or three times in the past 10 years.  I will try treating this with an antiviral ointment.

My back pain is resolved almost completely.

Last, but far from least, is the burning in my skin of my neck on the left.  I have been applying aloe vera lotion to this four or five times a day, but I anticipate this getting a lot worse.  This is particularly so as I will receive five electron beam treatments.  These treatments are designed to add radiation to the skin. I asked Dr. Lee what were the chances that my skin would break down and that I would require skin grafts.  He said that it was likely that my skin would break down, but that it was virtually certain to heal on its own.  However, because this is the original site of tumor, the intense radiation to the skin is required.

On Saturday, I had a long talk with a fellow sufferer of Merkel's carcinoma in Minnesota.  His name is Rich Kessler. He tells me that he is one of the founders of the group.  He still has a non-healing lesion on his leg in the skin as a result of his radiation treatment four years ago.  However I have to say that my discussion with him gave my spirits a big boost.  He has survived eight years with Merkel's.  Rich, this message is for you.  I read on one of the other posts on the Merkel site that you can send blood for testing to Dr. Nghiem's lab.

My bridge game still has not suffered.  Playing with Bert, in a game with 15 tables, we had the best score of all 30 pairs with 212 on a 156 average. 

Here are the pictures. You can see the left side of my face is red and pigmented. My beard on the left is barely growing. The left facial droop appears more pronounced to me.

 Unless there is some unexpected event, I will post in one week when I have completed the Intensity modulated treatments.


One additional note. My radiation badge at work is changed every month. Mine was changed today. How ironic! Here I am taking this huge dose of radiation and I wear a radiation badge at work monitoring me for trivial doses by comparison.
I have spent my entire career conscious of the hazards of radiation, and avoiding it to the best of my ability and now I willingly accept huge doses. 


Here is a link to information about circulating tumor cell science. It is slow to load and references breast cancer, but I assume it will also apply to Merkel's. My result was zero circulating tumor cells.
http://www.veridex.com/media/CellsearchMOA.aspx