Anxiety, Progress and a Positive Outlook

I had my 4th chemo yesterday and my 17th external radiation today. I am about 2/3rds done with those two treatments. I still have 5 internal radiation treatments, which are a 8 hour outpatient procedure. I won't be done with those until about a week before my birthday in July.

I had a real tough week last week with sickness. It's getting worse as I progress through the treatments because both the chemo and the radiation are building up in my system. I was horribly sick this morning. The day after chemo is about the worst. I took some extra nausea meds today and felt a bit better, but am tired as hell. All I did was put some tools up for Bret and unload and load the dishwasher, and straightened up the house a bit. I had woken up around 7am after going to bed around 3am. When I woke up, it was instant "I am going to throw up". And I did, and did and did. I got back to bed around 8am after settling the tummy down with nausea meds and then after holding those down, my other meds. One of which is $130/pill, wouldn't want to lose that one!

I have a lot of anxiety about tomorrow. The internal radiation is called brachytherapy. What they do is knock me out (thank god) and then they dialate my cervix to the size of childbirth, ouch! Then they insert 3 rods loaded with radioactive pellets and those rods will be right up against the tumor. Those rods will be in for 1.5 hours and then I will be moved to where I normally have radiation in the hospital. There they will do a CT Scan and then they will take me to radiation room A. I've not been in there yet, as I take radiation in room B currently. It sounds like there is water in room A. Like a big tub type thing with bubbles is what it sounds like. I think that they are going to take out the rods in there under water. Then there is recovery time after that.

I wonder how much pain I will be in. My last surgery hurt pretty bad those first few days after. But it was a different surgery. My mom will be with me for that one. Bret has to take care of his son for the day. Today was the last day at school and he graduated with A/B honor roll! I'm proud of him! But I can't be around kids for 3 days after tomorrow's surgery. I will be emitting radiation. It's in levels that adults can handle, but it is dangerous to be around kids because it will affect their growth or change their DNA. I'm going to put myself under a black light tomorrow night to see if I glow or anything!

I was pretty depressed over the weekend. I had a good morning on Saturday, but did too much too quick and ran out of steam around 1pm. I had spent the morning boiling eggs, making bacon, and making homemade cinnamon rolls complete with homemade icing. We sat down to eat my late brunch. It was great! But not 5 mins later I couldn't keep it down. After that I slept for 6 hours. Then slept more that night. But Sunday and Monday were very bleak for me. Sometimes I let the weight of all of this fall on me at once and I literally feel like I am being crushed. I am scared of this brachytherapy. I am scared that all this may not be enough the first time around and that I will have to do it all over again. Then there's money issues and moving issues. And just plain issues about pain, constant nausea, fatigue, and insomnia. It wears on you. And I just had a weekend where it wore on me a lot. I have a feeling after tomorrow, I will know what to expect and maybe that will help. I am just so ready to have my life back and my strength back. I want to go back to work and do the things I used to do that I can't do right now. I've had a lot of trouble with losing the whole independence part. Hell, I am only 32. Not 82.

Anyway, I hate to sound so down all the time, but this is a hard thing to go through. From the time from diagnosis to start of aggressive treatment was short. There was a reason for that. I am in a bad place with this tumor. With it already at the size of a baseball and spreading to tissue outside the cervix I was very rapidly losing the battle I didn't even know I was fighting, though I had a sinking suspicion I was after looking up my symptoms online. But I was hoping for a curable STD or some other condition that was curable in some way or another in a fast manner. Curing cancer is not a fast thing. It takes a lot of time. At this rate I have been out of work for 2 months with at least another 3 before I will be able to return on a full time status.

I just wish I was already done with all the treatments and on the road to recovery and back to life. I don't want to sound all wishy washy but everything is different now. Life has a different meaning and so do the things that occur in it. It has given me a lot of time to take stock of my life and where I am going. That's one of the positives that has come out of this. Always look for the positive.