January 10 marks the first day of my radiation therapy. The tumors in my spine and hips have caused them to be very weak and brittle. They could fracture or break basically anytime even when I do something super innocent like closing the car's trunk.
After much discussion with the radiation oncologist, I decided to get radiation therapy for my lumbar (one spinal compression fracture) and sacrum area.
At this time, I started to feel a bit of numbness roughly 3" in diameter at my left chin area. A quick X-ray showed that one of the vertebra at the base of my skull is also diseased. So we decided to treat that area with radiation too. The treatment plan is for me to receive 2 weeks of radiation, 5 days a week.
Because radiation therapy is very precise sort of treatment, it's required that I'm in the exact same position each time I come in. So the initial position of my CT scan has to be replicate exactly for all 10 sessions. For my body, 6 tiny tattoos were placed to mark my body so that the tattoos scan be used to line my body up exactly every session. As for the area at the base of my skull, they didn't want to give me face tattoos so a custom mask was made for me.
When the CT technician put the tattoos on me, she called them my healing tattoos because they mark my healing journey and that made me cry. She was so nice and told me that some of her family members have gone through the same battle and she was happy that I'm so positive about it.
I think the two weeks where I had to go through radiation therapy were very rough for me. I was very nauseated, had terrible diarrhea, and was very tired all the time. I couldn't eat. All food tasted terrible or very salty. I was constantly throwing up despite anti-nausea medication and all of the ginger I could eat/drink. Basically, I was throwing up and having diarrhea multiple times a day.
During this time, I also developed a stomach ulcer which I gotta tell ya, hurt like a motherfucking bitch. I thought broken bone pain was terrible. This ulcer pain was somehow even worse! It was a sharp pain that felt like someone slowly twist a knife in my stomach and kept twisting and turning for a good half hour. In fact, when it all happened, all I could do was lie and and moaned about it.
To top it all off, I took some imodium to combat the diarrhea and it caused me to be extremely bloated. I could not fart and could not burp. Basically, my digestive system had slowed down so much that I couldn't push any gas out. I was the most uncomfortable human balloon. So I had to stop taking imodium and just deal with the diarrhea.
Finally, 1/24 was the last day of my radiation therapy! But that doesn't mean the side effects stop immediately. I was warned that the side effects would continue for another week or two. Oy! By then, my skin started peeling like crazy. I looked like a birch tree during the winter. After the last session of radiation, they gave me my mask to take home.
After much discussion with the radiation oncologist, I decided to get radiation therapy for my lumbar (one spinal compression fracture) and sacrum area.
At this time, I started to feel a bit of numbness roughly 3" in diameter at my left chin area. A quick X-ray showed that one of the vertebra at the base of my skull is also diseased. So we decided to treat that area with radiation too. The treatment plan is for me to receive 2 weeks of radiation, 5 days a week.
Because radiation therapy is very precise sort of treatment, it's required that I'm in the exact same position each time I come in. So the initial position of my CT scan has to be replicate exactly for all 10 sessions. For my body, 6 tiny tattoos were placed to mark my body so that the tattoos scan be used to line my body up exactly every session. As for the area at the base of my skull, they didn't want to give me face tattoos so a custom mask was made for me.
When the CT technician put the tattoos on me, she called them my healing tattoos because they mark my healing journey and that made me cry. She was so nice and told me that some of her family members have gone through the same battle and she was happy that I'm so positive about it.
I think the two weeks where I had to go through radiation therapy were very rough for me. I was very nauseated, had terrible diarrhea, and was very tired all the time. I couldn't eat. All food tasted terrible or very salty. I was constantly throwing up despite anti-nausea medication and all of the ginger I could eat/drink. Basically, I was throwing up and having diarrhea multiple times a day.
During this time, I also developed a stomach ulcer which I gotta tell ya, hurt like a motherfucking bitch. I thought broken bone pain was terrible. This ulcer pain was somehow even worse! It was a sharp pain that felt like someone slowly twist a knife in my stomach and kept twisting and turning for a good half hour. In fact, when it all happened, all I could do was lie and and moaned about it.
To top it all off, I took some imodium to combat the diarrhea and it caused me to be extremely bloated. I could not fart and could not burp. Basically, my digestive system had slowed down so much that I couldn't push any gas out. I was the most uncomfortable human balloon. So I had to stop taking imodium and just deal with the diarrhea.
Finally, 1/24 was the last day of my radiation therapy! But that doesn't mean the side effects stop immediately. I was warned that the side effects would continue for another week or two. Oy! By then, my skin started peeling like crazy. I looked like a birch tree during the winter. After the last session of radiation, they gave me my mask to take home.
I have decided to turn my mask into a succulent planter. I haven't started on it yet, of course. My life is filled with managing the pain of my upper back (did not receive radiation for it because it would be too rough on my organs), diarrhea, and the constant fatigue.
I feel like I complained way too much about radiation but I didn't even receive that much. Other people have to go through chemo AND radiation and their treatment plans are longer than mine. Those people are super brave. But going through radiation, I was so sick of feeling unwell. Just fucking sick of being sick. I'm usually a very patient person but after just being out of commissions mot of the time, I was so done. I wanted it to be over very fast. But then I was reminded that it's super to be a marathon and not a sprint, it did help put things into perspective.
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