Rock beats scissors, steroids beats nausea

The past week was fairly uncomfortable.  I had a five day or so stretch of nausea and vomiting after most meals.  Not having an appetite in addition made trying to eat a challenge and at times painful.  I almost forgot to mention my radiation induced sore throat that burns all the way down with every other swallow.  Needless to say, I lost a few pounds. 

Monday was the breaking point where the first thing I did was throw up before even attempting to eat breakfast.  The anti-nausea meds definitely were not working, including the new and supposedly more powerful kind they put me on Friday.  My regular radiation oncologist was out of town, but I was able to see one of the residents.  I am very happy with how it worked out.  His questions and examination was brief and to the point.  Then he recommended starting me back on dexamethosone (a steroid) that I get put on with every round of chemo and with my increased back pain before starting radiation.  My nausea also started at the same time that I stopped taking it for said pain, so I had a strong feeling that it would work to stop it.

Sure enough, I've been taking steroids for the past two days, and I have been feeling back to normal.  Unfortunately the docs say steroids have a bunch of negative side effects (shocking) so they don't want me to be on them for very long.  Hopefully, whatever is the real cause of the nausea will be gone by the time I go off them again.  The docs don't think it's the radiation, but I'm not overly concerned as long as the dex keeps doing its job.

I only have 8 more days of radiation left.  After that I will have another set of scans to see how well the treatments worked, and my team of doctors will pow-wow to see what they want to do next.  I'm hoping for surgery for a few reasons.  First of all, I just want together it over with.  Surgery has been hanging over my head since they first found my chest tumor, and I've had several potential dates come and go as it is.  Secondly, I want this shit out of my body.  Third, I want to start the recovery process after they potentially take out several bones and a solid chunk of lung so I can get back to doing the things I love like biking, climbing, etc.  Those things are probably a long ways off still with chemo still on the schedule, but I wouldn't have to worry about breaking my cancerous and more fragile bones.  Chemo is going to happen no matter what with treatments stretching into next summer.  I'll keep you all informed on what they decide.