I started spitting up blood early in March. By the beginning part of April I was diagnosed with squamous cell lung cancer. With a PET scan they found one met to the upper part of my breastbone. At Duke Raleigh Hospital, I started Chemo and Radiation on April 21, concurrent for 6 days, to be followed by 5 more weeks of radiation with concurrent chemo at the end. Nausea wasn't too bad at first but now it's really getting me. They were giving me bags of IV's and pretreatments until now but with radiation alone the pretreatments have stopped. I was prescribed Morphine sulfate 15 mg ER to counteract the bone pain from the metastasis to the upper part of my breastbone, the only known met. That makes me a stage 4 but hopefully I stand a fair chance of beating it, since it's a single, treatable met.
My problem right now is nausea. The radiation is hitting my esophagus and that probably accounts for why I can't seem to get anything to go down. I think it does but everything seems to stick in my throat. Possibly I'm lacking the feedback feeling of having swallowed. I have been given prescriptions for Loazepam (Ativan) and Ondansetron but neither are helping.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to control the nausea, the feeling that everything gets stuck at the back of my throat? I've heard that nausea patches are effective. Anyone know about those? I have had one bout of dehydration so far and I'm afraid I'll get more.
