The end of the path is near.

Good morning, hope that everyone is having a great day. Dave is now down to one chemotherapy and four radiation treatments left. March 18 will be his last radiation and his last chemo is scheduled. When we saw Dr. Simmons (radiation dr.) on Monday, he said Dave is doing well. Dave does have a pretty serious sunburn going on with his neck, and says he is now an official redneck, lol. There are some places that could be second degree burns, and silvadene was prescribed if it gets to that stage. Dave has started taking the pain meds. that were prescribed, (Advil wasn't working as well). He did awesome up till this past week with his radiation. Unfortunately, Daves voice is gone for now. He speaks in a loud whisper, this is expected to improve after his treatments are done. I am sure the kids don't mind, although I am the one doing all the yelling now :(
We saw Dr. Koenig (chemo. dr.) this morning. He is also happy with Daves progress. Dave has lost about 15 pounds since he started his treatments in January. Dr. Koenig said this is good and glad that it didn't start earlier in his treatments. We talked about his eating, and decided to keep trying food and also nutrition supplements. It has become a hit or miss on food that he can eat. Sometimes he can and sometimes he can't, food just tastes horrible! Dave is not a big guy to begin with, but he can put the food away :) So this experience has been hard for me to see, knowing how he enjoys eating. He has started eating cream of wheat for breakfast and sometimes lunch. If he is unable to eat supper, he has one of the supplements and the cream of wheat or soup. We went to Paneras Sat. evening and he got a bowl of there Chicken Noodle soup, which he ate the whole thing (except about 5-6 spoonfuls). Rachael was sitting across from him and was grinning from ear to ear watching him eat. She was very happy that her daddy ate almost all of his supper (so was I). On Sunday morning I made sausage gravy and biscuits with eggs. He ate one grands biscuit and two eggs. We were all glad to see this. As you can see it is hit or miss here. Dave especially has trouble eating after his chemo treatments for about a week, then his eating starts improving a bit.
Dave will see Dr. Lutz this month for a checkup and he will determine if we need to see Dr. Rezaee from University Hospital. We are hoping that these treatments destroyed the tumor on his larynx (voice box) so that no other procedures or treatments need to be done. God bless you and thanks for listening. We love you all.