Day +6: Swallowing pride
Today has been a painful day for Ramón, but we’re ending the night on a pretty good note. Until we were thrown into this cancer fiasco, I’ll admit I didn’t know much about the details of chemo or radiation. However, both treatments aim to target rapidly dividing cells, ideally the cancerous kind. The body has many other types of rapidly dividing cells, though, like cells in hair follicles – hence hair loss – and the digestive tract.
Though we all know Ramón would have a luscious head of hair if not for the cancer, today he’s been struggling with the digestive tract side of things. His mouth and throat are very sore and painful, so we’ve been working to address that for most of the day. After what felt like many strikes, we’ve finally hit on some effective ways to keep Ramón comfortable. Since his white blood cell count is undetectable, this issue won’t resolve itself as quickly as we’d like. So, the goal is pain management until he can begin healing on his own.
Despite excruciating agony, Ramón was motivated enough to walk periodically throughout the day, and we totaled a whopping 21 laps, surpassing yesterday’s total by one. His stubbornness is occasionally disadvantageous (e.g. managing pain in a timely fashion), but, for the most part, it enables him to achieve the seemingly unattainable goals he sets (e.g. walking laps, landing me as a partner).
Although we had some pretty low moments today, we can go to sleep confident that tomorrow should be better. Sending love far and wide!
Though we all know Ramón would have a luscious head of hair if not for the cancer, today he’s been struggling with the digestive tract side of things. His mouth and throat are very sore and painful, so we’ve been working to address that for most of the day. After what felt like many strikes, we’ve finally hit on some effective ways to keep Ramón comfortable. Since his white blood cell count is undetectable, this issue won’t resolve itself as quickly as we’d like. So, the goal is pain management until he can begin healing on his own.
This isn't everything... |
Despite excruciating agony, Ramón was motivated enough to walk periodically throughout the day, and we totaled a whopping 21 laps, surpassing yesterday’s total by one. His stubbornness is occasionally disadvantageous (e.g. managing pain in a timely fashion), but, for the most part, it enables him to achieve the seemingly unattainable goals he sets (e.g. walking laps, landing me as a partner).
Although we had some pretty low moments today, we can go to sleep confident that tomorrow should be better. Sending love far and wide!
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