salivation sadness

My mouth still takes like I've just taken a drag off of an exhaust pipe.

Okay, so I've never really taken a drag off of anything, and I've never actually tasted an exhaust pipe. But my nasopharangeal imagination is astute, and I'm sure that the taste in my mouth resembles an equivalency of sucking on an old diesel exhaust pipe after it's burned gears climbing Monteagle Mountain in August.

Even after I brush my teeth and know that my mouth is clean, it still tastes like I've gargled with toxic waste. Most of the food I'm eating doesn't taste the way I remember it should, either, which should go away in time, but for the time being it's not fun.

Speaking of time, I'm having a hard time remembering that it's only been a couple of weeks since the radiation and a month since the surgery. I'm wanting to feel better more quickly, and I'm frustrated that I'm still tired and that food tastes like rust. This morning I was thinking about it and realized that it's okay that I'm still tired; it's not been long enough yet for me to feel good.

Sometimes you just need permission to be frustrated, I guess. I gave it to myself today, and it felt great. However, my celebratory chocolate chip cookie did not taste like cookie -- unless it was someone's science fair project gone terribly awry.

Meanwhile, The Hater is taking such good care of me! He's really stocking up on brownie points by waiting on me when I get home from work. All week he's tolerated me asking him if my breath stinks (because I'm getting paranoid about the taste in my mouth; sometimes I can't tell if it's just me or if halitosis is an equal culprit!). Marrying him was the smartest thing I've ever done.

And he said he'd chew all the rest of the orange bubble gum we'd bought for me to chew while on isolation. I was chewing lots of gum and eating lots of lemon drops to help keep the radiation from settling in my salivary glands... I went through about three packs of that gum in five days, and now the smell of that flavor turns my stomach.

The pink gum still tastes like pink gum and makes equally good bubbles, so don't worry. I'm still getting my smack on.