Let's see, what's been going on? Tom went in for his port last Monday and that part went very well, no significant pain involved with the surgery or recovery. However, he was having severe upper back pain, so on Tuesday he went in for an MRI of his back. The MRI took 5 hours and laying on the hard table did not help his back. Having the results of yet another scan was comforting, nothing going on with his back, must just be muscular. The worst, on going part has been trying to get off the Percocet, I'm telling you that stuff is nothing to mess around with. Even though Tom has been taking a relatively low dosage for a relatively short time, his body is having an unbelievably difficult time withdrawing from it. He stopped taking it on Easter and found that he was having some horrible withdrawal effects. We did some research and talked to doctors and decided to taper off slowly, but every time he reduced his dosage at all, he was back into the withdrawal symptoms. At that pace he could feel like crap for a month or more, well into the chemo. After talking to the doctor some more, Tom decided to go cold turkey on Friday. The doctor prescribed some sedatives and nausea medicine and Tom has been trying his best to just sleep through it. After this, the chemo may seem not so bad.



Chemo starts Tuesday and yes, the beginning of the chemo side effects should overlap with the end of the withdrawal effects. I'm looking for Tom to be less than miserable around Cinco de Mayo.

Jan