And no, it wasn't a good weekend.

I can piss and moan at the drop of a hat. Give me half a chance and I will whine and complain until the cows come home. But Richard is different. I don’t understand it, but despite being given ample reasons to grumble about his lot in life, he generally maintains an even keel.

But there were no smiles on Sunday.

A couple of moons ago, Richard’s thoracic surgeon mentioned that doing surgery after radiation treatment was difficult because the procedure fried the tissue and made it very difficult to work with in a surgical setting. I can’t vouch for the inner tissues, but I can tell you the skin around the radiation points (read: chest and back) are red and irritated and generally unfriendly. Richard’s back muscles hurt, so I offered a back rub. Due to federal regulations regarding profanity on the internet, I can’t put his response in print, but let’s just say I retracted my offer and apologized profusely.

Richard’s throat and voice box are also fried. For the most part he can swallow okay, so we aren’t to the point of puréed prime rib, but he is very careful about the foods he eats: no sharp edges, no acidity, no spice, no tofu. And his voice is raspy and his singing range is shot.

Exhaustion is his constant companion. Constipation, with odd little spurts of diarrhea mixed in, is his cohort. He has to force himself to eat and drink. Nothing tastes good and he is bloated. Little tastes strong enough to get over the foul taste in his soul, and if it does you know it is going to {expletive deleted] with his throat. The list of his ailments is so long that my fingers are hurting from typing. (See, I can get this back to being about me. Whine, whine, whine!)

There was a time yesterday when I had the car keys and my hand and was ready to rush him to Hood River Hospital. The two most devastating side effects of chemo are infection and nausea. Richard had a slight fever and was upchucking like there was no tomorrow. I don’t know why I went along with him and let him stay home, but I did. And he survived.

And today was his last chemo treatment. And he has just four more radiation treatments. They warned us today, relief isn’t immediate. It is going to be two or three weeks after everything is done before he starts to truly feel better. But there is light at the end of the tunnel

To the nurses who administered the chemo treatments to Richard, “Thank you!” Kim, Melissa, Kathryn and Heather, you made the unbearable bearable. You are amazing!