Ethyol…A Completely Biased, Nearly Post-Humous Anecdotal Evaluation

Who asked me if I wanted to take Ethyol? With my irradiated brain, it’s possible I missed or misunderstood the question. But I can’t imagine I’d misunderstand the side effects if they’d been described to me.

 

Ethyol is given daily, injected into the abdomen, left side one day, right side the next. Yes, the injection hurts, a lot. But the promise of salvaged salivary glands and taste buds is worth the pain.

 

It took nearly three weeks for me to realize that Ethyol was killing me. Each day I left radiation weaker than the previous day. I could barely get out of the car let alone climb the stairs to my bed. What little appetite I had disappeared with spiking fevers and vomitting. Muscle weakness, lethargy, depression, inability to speak beyond a sentence or two. But I didn’t know enough about Ethyol’s side-effects to recognize the culprit.

 

My husband worried each day as he left for work that he’d return home to a corpse. But he had to work. His insurance was providing my treatments. My insurance was a curl-up-and-die plan.

 

Finally, I made the connection between Ethyol and my rapidly deteriorating condition. On weekends I wasn’t sick like this. Beginning on Monday I ran fevers, couldn’t eat, slept too much or rolled about with pain and nausea, and these symptoms worsened each day til I simply wanted to die by Friday.

 

Since I hadn’t had enough chemo to be this sick, it had to be the Ethyol I had to stop that treatment if I wanted to survive chemo and radiation. Adios tastebuds and salivary glands.

 

Would I recommend Ethyol to you? Yes, I would. You have to do what you can to protect your taste buds and salivary glands. Perhaps the three weeks I took it reduced the damage. At the same time, I’d caution you to read everything you can about Ethyol and to watch your own progress while taking it. For me, Ethyol took the side-effects of chemo and radiation to the third power. For you it may just be a daily annoyance as you take the shot. But try it if your insurance allows it. Ethyol may be your silver bullet in the fight to come out of this cancer as a whole person.