5 weeks out of rads and chemo for NPC

Jimbo55 said:

Start Slow
Hi Kyle

Can't help with the tube question as I didn't have one.

It is so easy to overdo it soon after treatment and it really does knock you on your butt for a day or so, ain't that the truth. I was lucky and was able to ease back into work after treatment. For the first month or so, I would go in to work in the am and then usually go have a bit of a workout in the afternoon.

I tried to keep active during treatment, mostly by taking a 20-30 minute walk each day. By the end of treatment, 15 minutes was a struggle. After treatment I slowly built myself back up, adding a little bit by bit. About 4-6 weeks post treatment, I tried running and could make all of 5 minutes (seemed like 45 minutes!) I then increased by 1 minute each run.

I don't think heart rate and distance should be a primary concern when you are first getting back into it. That 1st 5 minute slow jog had me sweating bullets!
Pushing yourself too hard, especially in the beginning, will definitely have you knackered for the next several days.

I am 16 months post tx and earlier this month I ran in a 10K. It was a great run among the ancient temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. These temples date back to the 9th and 10th centuries. A great setting for a run and it was a great day to be alive to run this race once again after surviving the big C.

Cheers!
Jimbo

This is about how I have reconditioned
after my several interventions. Well, except for the cambodia thing:)

5 weeks
If you are only five weeks out and doing all that, then I think you are doing fantastic. I'm not NPC, but I had SCC and 30 rads.

I was told by my doctors and my nutrition team that I had to gain back at least 13 pounds, to get to 100 lbs, and then maintain my weight for at least one month with out using my peg tube at all. So if you are a decent weight now, as your doctors, but if you can maintain a safe weight format least a month without the tube, that is good. I made sure I kept track of my calories daily, to make sure I was getting enough in. I found that if I did not track them, I would not get enough. I looked up how many calories i needed and ate enough calories to reach my goal weight. Drank a lot of smoothies with protein powder, and prepared a lot of eggs with hollandaise sauce, and a lot of puréed vegetable soups with my HealthMaster, which is an emulsifier/high speed blender. Vitamix, and Ninjas are other high speed blenders others have to make it easier to get in good nutrition. It took a long time to get back taste buds and appetite. I'm 2.5 years out and now I'm starving all the time. My taste buds are so much better, but not what they were before radiation treatments. I still have issues and pain with my tongue.

If you need food ideas and tips with nutrition look at the HNC Superthread in the section called:

NUTRITION / HEALTHY EATING / LIQUID NUTRITION TIPS:


HNC  SUPERTHREAD


Can't help with the exercise.

One month after my radiation
One month after my radiation got my taste for sweet, I just finished my ist cycle of chemo for npc and I'm still doing fine, I can still eat but the real appetite is not there, were the same, we pushed ourselves too much to be normal again, but I guess its still too early to be normal again... I have a little bit of taste of any food, but the sweet is like 95%. You'll see one day you will be surprised you already got your taste back!...

sweetblood22 said:

Sweet things.
Sweet taste came back first for me. Took a very long time for savory foods to come back for me. Everything tasted like wall paper paste with tons of salt.

Missing
I miss eating fruit, right now anything sweet has a nasty taste. Just finished creamed loaded baked potatoe soup with left over ham that I cut into cube...was delicious.