The Sutent tore Daddy apart the first round. Four weeks of absolute Hell. It caused extreme fatigue, which prevented his physical therapy, which worsened his pain level, which encouraged him to take more pain medication, which makes him even more tired. Vicious cycle. Plus, the chemo caused mouth sores so bad that I had to resort to making him nutritional protein smoothies because it was physically impossible or him to eat, which made him even more weak. My father is such a strong person, to watch him in such pain and without any energy made me sick to my stomach. He was starting to look like the cancer patients you see on TV, it got really bad. There were times he'd be awake for only 20 minutes and he'd fall back asleep, I'd find myself staring at his chest and my heart would not continue to beat until I saw his chest rise again. I lived every second of every day in fear that he would not wake up.
The next doctors visit we brought all of this up, it was the hardest trip in and out of the house and hospital. We spoke to a pain management doctor, he told us that we were actually over medicating and that it was causing Daddy autonomic (primary) nervous system to shut down. "Shut down"... I almost threw up hearing those words come out of the doctors mouth. But, he had a plan of action. Low dose morphine, steroid to help with fatigue and mouth sores, pump the protein. It was a complete turn around from there. Dad perked right up, spirits and all. When it came time for the first round of CT scans since being on the Sutent, we already knew it was doing something and working, it had to be.
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