first major set back

The radiation and chemo have finally taken an immense toll on Paul. He's now frail, always nauseous, always weak, always tired, and skeletal. The only good thing of this cancer thing is how skinny it makes you but it's not a nice skinny. When you can see someone's ribs without them sucking in their breath, I think there is a problem.

Unfortunately this has resulted in Paul not being able to complete the entire six weeks of radiation, which also means he doesn't get his radiation diploma. I rushed him to the oncologist when he could no longer eat without racing to the bathroom. It was the most insane thing I have ever witnessed. He didn't even need to take a bite of food before he would go running to the bog. He would force himself to eat at least a piece of bread so he could take his chemo pills but it was painful to watch him force himself to swallow, all the while gagging as it went down.

There's also a new side effect that he's getting where out of nowhere he is writhing, screaming and crying in pain. He refuses to go the ER and has threatened that if I call an ambulance he will just kick them in the face so my hands are tied. Luckily, two Vicodins seem to do the trick but they took forever to kick in. The oncologist is baffled what this could be and orders a small chemo break to see if any of these side effects will subside.

Have I mentioned that he also has a tan on the areas where the radiation was performed. One little burn mark as well but we are using some special cream that the radiation clinic gave us and it seems to be working. Another side note of radiation is that Paul has gotten an unexpected bikini waxing from it. Yup, out of nowhere, he's looking like a pre-pubescent boy in his nether regions. It makes you think if this is the damage that we can see, we can only imagine what it's doing to his insides. With any luck, it's destroying Timmy enough to either be removed surgically or simply become scar tissue but only time and a PET CT scan will tell.