Steady by Jerks

“How’s it going?” is a common conversation starter. I use the reply that Grandpa Nelson favored.

“Steady by jerks,” I’ll say.

This has never been truer than during my recovery from treatment for tonsil cancer.

There are going to be repercussions whenever they slightly kill you with toxic chemicals and blast you with ionizing radiation. Think of Superman soaked in kryptonite.

More than two months have passed since my last radiation. I was told that things would continue to get worse for the first two weeks. They weren’t kidding.

My mouth and throat became so sore that the mere act of swallowing became the subject of much mental debate. I would take a small amount of water into my mouth and ask myself, “Do you really want to do this? You know it’s going to hurt.”

In an effort to help me with eating and swallowing, I was prescribed a substance called magic mouthwash. It contained lidocaine and thoroughly numbed anything it touched, even if accidentally.

The magic mouthwash had a powerful minty flavor. That was not my problem with it. My problem was its consistency, which I would describe as cold camel snot. Just thinking about it gives me the shivers.

One day I looked at my tongue in the mirror and was shocked to see that it was the color of lemon pudding, the kind of yellow that you see on highway signs. I didn’t dare go outdoors and stick out my tongue for fear that the squirrels might mistake it for an ear of corn.

This was duly reported to one of my doctors, who said that I had thrush. I was given yet another mouthwash although this one was much less viscous and easier to swallow.

As the aftereffects of the radiation continued to worsen, I lost all desire to eat. A gastric tube had been installed before my treatments began and I started to make use of it. I would suspend a gravity bag from an IV pole and let nutritionally dense liquid trickle into the tube. The gastric tube soon became a focus of my days.

After a feeding I might burp and get a taste of the liquid. It was strange to taste something that had never been in my mouth.

In an effort to reinvigorate my appetite, I obsessively watched cooking shows. I even read Ina Garten’s memoir, “Be Ready When the Luck Happens.” It was an enjoyable read, chock full of details about the risks Garten took both in business and in the kitchen.

My situation resulted in weight loss. The doctors and my wife became focused on my weight, specifically, keeping it on instead of losing it. Like most Americans, I had a bit of a cushion to fall back on. It’s not like I’ve become a walking skeleton; I’m just a little more svelte now.

The radiation people said that I would likely feel tired and need lots of rest. They weren’t kidding.

I rested and napped so much that I began to grow roots into my recliner. I have never been so lazy in my life.

But it’s easy to make excuses for not doing much when you don’t feel like doing much. I cannot count the number of days that passed with me moping around the house and feeling nauseous despite the religious use of anti-puke pills. Many days, it was all I could do to walk around our farmstead and look at our Jersey steers. They would come over to the fence and look back at me; a couple of them would try to see how I tasted.

Speaking of which, the radiation people said my sense of taste would be affected. They weren’t kidding.

I genuinely like chicken. One day my wife was cooking chicken and the aroma nearly caused me to ralph. That situation has since resolved itself.

The good news is that over the past few weeks I’ve started to eat again and am no longer using the gastric tube. My weight went down slightly but has since rebounded. I hope that the doctors will be pleased; I can’t wait to get rid of that stupid tube.

I’ve resumed my daily mile-long walks, and my strength is slowly returning. A flight of stairs no longer looks as daunting as the slopes of Everest.

The good days are outnumbering the bad and I can see flickers of light at the end of this long, dark tunnel. I couldn’t have made it without the support of friends and family. My wife deserves a special place in heaven for everything she has done.

It’s steadily onwards and upward. And the jerks are happening less and less often.

Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy” can be found at www.workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.