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Today marks a third of the way through the radiotherapy treatment and the 28th of December can not come quick enough.  I hate writing this blog with just more doom and gloom and increasing pain and discomfort.  I wish I could say things have plateaued and settled and the pain management is working a treat, but I can't.  Unfortunately things are getting worse and will continue to get worse for some weeks yet.  The speed and ferocity at which the pain and discomfort has intensified is a little scary.  Just in a matter of days it has really escalated.  Karen has a purple patch for about 2 hours directly after taking pain killers and numbing mouth washes.  After that, things deteriorate dramatically to a point where she is not able to speak or swallow without intense pain.  She has quite bad swelling around the lips, in her mouth and tongue.  This further complicates the actual radiotherapy procedure.  Part of the mask she has to wear when strapped down to the table had to be altered around the mouth to accommodate the swelling so it still fitted without cutting into her face.  She also has to have a (for want of a better word), putty ball placed in her mouth about the size of a golf ball.  This is so her mouth, tongue and jaw are in the same position each time.  Given her swelling, it is getting increasingly more difficult to actually open her mouth to then bite down on this ball.  So another day of tears as every new day seems to bring with it a fresh set of challenges.  

As terrible as this whole process is, there are certainly moments where we have been overwhelmed by people.  Without going into detail, today Karen contacted her work to advise them she was not able to continue on as she thought she might and would not be returning until the new year.  In turn Cedar College has been very generous in offering further assistance above and beyond anything we could of imagined.  On the same day, my Centre Manager also contacted me to discuss an idea she had to also assist us greatly coming into the Christmas period.  Again we were both overwhelmed by both offers.  Anyone who knows a little about us know we don't often ask for help and try to manage things as best we can on our own.  So a big thank you to both work places.

Please continue to pray for us and particularly for pain management for Karen.  It really is much, much more than what we were expecting and as mentioned, only going to get worse for a period of time.
Again I have done a photo of week 3 as compared to week 1.  It may not look like much, but you can just start to see the shiny red glow around the chin and neck and also the swelling around the lips and jaw line.  Maybe I am looking to much into it, but I think a little bit of the sparkle in her eyes has gone too.  

Week 1                                                                                             Week 3