Rough Patch

I think the last week has been one of the roughest of my entire 9.5 months of treatment and procedures ... and if someone had told me that I'd need to take more pain pills to relieve the discomfort of radiation than I needed after surgery, I would have told them they were crazy! But today I've already taken 3 pain pills, and will most likely need another before I go to bed, and then will wake before dawn when the bedtime one wears off. I often just work my way through pain and maybe take a tylenol here and there ... but I've finished the bottle of pain pills left from surgery and got a refill today.

Chemo was certainly no walk in the park, and maybe like a lot of things the memories of how exhausted and queasy I felt during chemo have just faded. Those were not fun days. Surgery and recovery certainly had moments of pain and discomfort, again with some sleepless nights and some days I just felt like I could cry after everyone left for work and school. But others told me radiation would be a breeze after what I've already endured ... and I believed them, so this has kind of caught me off guard. Just like every other part of this journey, it is definitely unique to your own body.

I'm fair skinned, and they told me early on that I would develop some burns. Maybe it's my own fault for not envisioning that "some burns" could translate into a fist-sized spot near my collarbone that has burned, blistered and is now raw. Another area, right above my rib cage, is about 8" wide and 2" tall and must have been the very bottom of the radiation field, because it is a straight line that is purple, blistered, peeling and raw. And then under my arm I have two large fluid-filled blisters (they are seriously as big as marbles) and the skin around them is so dark purple it almost looks black.

Bleh. Sorry if this is too much information, but I've never been anything but honest about how things are going when I write a post here.

So if the days and the sleepless nights with the burns weren't already bad enough ... yesterday the red area on my neck started to blister. They do radiation of the neck to reach the lymph nodes that sit a few inches under your ear, in the instance that any cancer cells went delinquent over the past few months and ended up there. With the external blistering of my neck, yesterday also brought an intense sore throat that felt different than the "I must be catching something" kind of thing you know the feeling of. Yep, sure enough they took a look today and as the radiation beam worked it's magic on my neck, it apparently crossed into my throat and created discomfort and swelling. The nurse said to call right away "if I had trouble swallowing" and I laughed and told her I'd probably head to the ER, not make a phone call. Doesn't seem like the kind of thing you want to wait on an answering service to take the call, page the doctor, wait for a response ... only to have him likely tell you if it's that bad, go to the ER.

Ugh. I feel cruddy and I'm grumpy. Bet you already knew that.

The pain pills help me sleep, but it's still restless sleep. With vivid dreams. One particularly scary one where I was trying to scream because I was in danger, but nothing would come out of my mouth in the dream ... but Mitch said I woke him up talking and screaming.

Today was treatment #31. Even though tomorrow is Saturday, I still go in for #32 because of the adjusted holiday schedule ... and Monday is #33, the final one. Stick a fork in me, I'll be done. Not only done with radiation, but also with the 3rd and final phase of my battle against cancer. It's almost time to begin living the type of life where I'll live anxiously from scan to scan, and be concerned over every weird feeling and pain ... but most importantly, it's just going to be time to LIVE.