Michael

Today Michael has finished his fifth week of treatment. He has one more week of this phase of the treatment, which will be comprised of five "boost" radiation treatments that will be more focused and more intense than what he has undergone over the last few weeks. I guess they intend to send him out with a bang.

It's been a rather difficult week. From my end and from his end, but of course for different reasons. I've already ranted about the things I'm struggling with. As for Michael, in addition to the same stresses and worries that I have, he's also got the physical stuff to deal with. He seems to be doing okay with the chemo now, but the radiation is taking a toll on him. He's fatigued, and having quite a bit of internal pain - enough so that the doc prescribed pain meds for him. Basically, the radiation is frying his insides. Nice, huh?

It's hard to watch all this happening to him. He's keeping his good humor about the whole thing, for the most part, but I think I'm losing my humor and my morale seems to be going downhill. I try to imagine what he must be feeling like, and all I can come up with as a comparison is pregnancy: the fatigue of pregnancy, and the pain of labor. But I'm sure it's completely different. Plus, all the discomforts of pregnancy are for such a positive and hopeful purpose: you get a baby at the end of it all. He's not growing a beautiful baby, he's fighting cancer, he's fighting for his life.

So one more week of radiation, and then he'll be done forever with that. One more week of this phase of chemo, and then four weeks off, and then a second phase of chemo.