I survived the first of five!

It's Saturday, and I am still recovering from the first internal radiation treatment. It took 10 hours and there were complications. I had a lot of bleeding post-op and my doc was very worried. I seem to be ok on that front, but I am having a lot of swelling in my legs and feet today. It was a painful procedure. And it turns out that there isn't a water thing in the other radiation room for patients, it's for the machines to keep them cool.

Thursday when I got to the hospital it was 7:15 am. I didn't leave until after 5 pm. I got all the pre-op questions and bloodwork out of the way and then they moved me to anesthesia, then to OR. I am only awake for a couple of mins in OR. It is during this time that they are putting the rod implants into me, 3 of them, around the tumor. Those three rods are also attached to a pivotal thing that is bolted to the bed under the matress. It's medieval looking. I had a problem with the rods shifting, so they had to reposition them, and I was awake for that, OUCH! Then I was taken into radiation room A and they loaded the rods with radioactive pellets and left the room for about 20 mins. Then they come back in and take the pellets out. Then I was put in the CT Scan, then in a room. In that room is where they took the rods out, and holy crap, it hurt so bad. First they took the packing out (around the rods) and it felt like my insides were being torn out. Then each rod came out one by one, and it was excruciating as well. Then the catheter, also not fun. Then the bleeding was bad. I was told that I was bleeding from the tumor and that I had lost a lot of blood that way, and then there was complication number two. And that was, the back wall of my vagina was perforated with one of the rods. I thought I was going to have to stay at the hospital, but luckily I started to clot and they let me go. I have been lightly bleeding since then and now my legs and feet are very swollen. Sooo....if I don't get better with the swelling by this evening, I will probably have to go back to the hospital. Damn it. I don't want to. So I hope it goes down.

My body has taken so much abuse in a short amount of time and I keep hoping that I can survive it. Some days I don't feel like I can. Other days I am more optimistic.

Some good news, I did find out that the tumor is shrinking, but I don't know by how much. Good news is good news nonetheless. I hope that they can eradicate it like they are hoping they can do. More surgeries is not what I want for my birthday! If I could have anything I wanted for my birthday I would ask for all of this to be done and to have my life back, to be able to do the things that I took for granted before. Small things like driving, getting up by myself, etc. Yep, that's what I want for my birthday.