Wednesday 2/18: At my last check up I had lost a lot of weight, about 15 lb. I have reported my difficulty getting enough calories with my lack of appetite and finding nothing very appealing, but I thought I was doing pretty good. The large weight loss was a surprise to me. Well, the upshot of it all is that we have decided to go ahead and have a feeding tube inserted. This is normally an outpatient surgical procedure but because of the way my stomach is pushed up into my chest and because of the cancer, the doctor is planning on my staying in the hospital overnight. So this is scheduled for Friday afternoon and home on Saturday. I’m not really looking forward to this, but I think it is really the only way for me to keep my weight up given the struggle I have had eating enough. I will continue to eat as much as I can and then use the feeding tube to supplement calories as needed.

While all this discussion was taking place, they took a blood sample (normal procedure for someone doing chemo) and it turns out my kidney function is not what it should be, so I had to go back to the infusion clinic and had 2 liters of normal saline solution through the port and have to go back tomorrow for another 2 liters. Kind of flush out the system. It turns out that this is a common effect of the cisplatin chemo that I was given last week, but a complication I didn’t appreciate while I am trying to get psyched up for this surgical procedure.
In the middle of all this, Sally has come down with a really bad sore throat, possibly strep. She had a culture taken today and we will know tomorrow. Probably all the stress, which she has been feeling more than I have, has reduced her resistance. Anyway we really make a pair right now.