After finishing my chemo and radiation I was very happy. Glad it was all behind me and ready to get on with life. I went for a check up to see how everything had gone and we found that the tumor had not shrunk. Naturally my mood shrunk with the news. I still had one other treatment to do and the doctors didn’t seem concerned about the lack of progress as yet. They told me not to worry and the next round of treatments would do the trick. The procedure is called Brachy Therapy and it is a type of internal radiation. I won’t go into all the details simply because it isn’t necessary to do so. I will however, tell you about one of my experiences during these treatments. I had two of them and there are some funny stories that go along with both of them.
After the radiation “seeds” have been put into place, I could only lay at a 30 percent incline. You can’t do much at a 30 percent incline, let me tell you. I was to be in the hospital for 4 days and because of the high level of radiation I was allowed no visitors. The nurses could only be in the room for 26 minutes for a 12 hour shift. Those of you that know me know my sense of humor is just a bit off center, OK, it is a little warped, and that’s probably more accurate. I’m in the hospital room, I have lots of books to read so I can catch up on my reading, I have my portable CD player and lots of CD’s. I am ready, trying to look on the bright side and looking forward to reading.
The “radiation team” comes into my room and I burst out laughing as soon as I saw them, we are talking one of those almost uncontrollable laughs. I am looking at the 3 doctors in my room with alien suits on, complete with head gear and they are pushing a buggy with a stainless steel cylinder with all kinds of warnings on it. I thought I had fallen asleep and woke up in a Sci-Fi movie. I looked for the spaceship and couldn’t see it outside my window. They all looked very serious, (I think they were wondering if I had already had too much pain medication), I was still laughing, thinking, you’re kidding right? They completed the procedure by placing the “seeds” in their proper place. Mumbled some things to each other, I didn’t understand what they said; I think they were speaking alien. I would tell you what language I thought it was but not knowing what planet they were from made it impossible for me to determine. One of the aliens, I mean doctors came over to discuss what to expect and to tell me that my IV had my pain medication in it. I could press the button when I needed more medication.
OK, so it has begun. Did I mention that I was on pain medication? Oh, yea, I did. Well, let me tell you a secret. When you are on high powered pain medication, you can’t see very well with or without glasses. I pride myself on being a fast learner and it only took me a couple of hours to realize there would be no reading books during this procedure. I looked and looked at the pages, turned the book at angles, held it close, held it far away, nope couldn’t see a thing. Praise God I brought the music along and I did have a TV in the room. Shortly into the treatment I realized the medication made me a little nauseated. One of the times the nurse was in the room I mentioned the nausea to her and she said the doctor had already left orders for medication to counter act the nausea. Oh, my goodness. The new medication was funny. I would pass out almost as soon as they started putting it into my IV. Good thing I wasn’t going to read.
No comments:
Post a Comment