Increasingly I experience sudden plunges in blood pressure, my speech slows and slurs, my legs get weak, I get dizzy, and I have to sit down. Maybe these symptoms are a late effect of the radiation treatment I received in 1997 for head&neck cancer, when radiation scatter was inevitable. But I live in the desert and the symptoms are also consistent with dehydration.
I am rooting for dehydration. Radiation to the throat area damages salivary glands and often leaves head&neck survivors with permanent dry mouth. I drink water all the time but maybe I pee it out too fast. Maybe my body chemistry is changing. We are checking it out.
Last week I turned in the event monitor I wore for a month and my electrocardiogram is next week. Now is the time to refer to my Survivorship Care Plan. Because I was treated before the 2006 landmark study, “From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition,” introduced the concept in its recommendations, I created my own. You may not have one because the Commission on Cancer in 2019 rescinded its 2012 accreditation requirement that all survivors receive a Survivorship Care Plan prepared by the treatment provider.
The Survivorship Care Plan is the ultimate survivorship tool. You can create your own at OncoLink.org using the OncoLink Survivorship Care Plan builder. But why did the CoC scale down its support of this great idea? That is a question that may be answered by Implementation Science.
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