Last night I added another step to my before going to bed routine. In previous nights I was waking up with almost no saliva in my mouth. I am now using a spray for dry mouth, which seemed to let me sleep a little bit better. Well...it was either that or the percocet or both. Now my nightly routine is take meds, magic mouthwash, brush my teeth, have a fit from the stinging of the toothpaste, drink a ton of water, coat my mouth with gelclair (mouth sore soothing gel), spray to prevent dry mouth, use lidocaine to numb any remaining mouth pain, fill the humidifier with water, and finally hop into bed. Then I wake up multiple times during the night and get to repeat whichever of those steps I think will help the most. It's all just getting very tiring.
This morning I was taking a nap and woke up short of breath. I was having trouble breathing because my throat was so full of mucus. I tried coughing it up to no avail. I eventually was able to help get rid of some by gargling with a salt water solution, then drinking a lot of water to try to rinse down the rest. I'm going to talk to my nurse/doctor today to see if I can add taking mucinex to my medication regimen. I worry about sleeping too much and waking up to another fit like this.
It's all so frustrating. My throat is full of liquid, yet my mouth is so dry. If I didn't have only 7 more treatments to go, I don't know if I could do this. I can't imagine how bad most head & neck cancer patients have it. My doctors and radiation techs continue to be amazed at how "good" I'm doing. :\
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Chris explained the same thing to me the other day. Wow. The important thing is that you do have only 7 more treatments to go, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And hey, continue to be grateful you aren't a "bad" case. I think about that a lot for my own disease. At least I don't have as much brain damage as many others. At least I can walk again. Keep it in perspective. You're in the home stretch. As horrible as all of this is right now, you're so close to getting better. We're all rooting for you! And for goodness sake, don't come back to work until you really feel well enough! I cringed when you said the 15th. Take some more time for goodness sake! But I guess you'll know when you know.
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