Chapter 2 Complete



When you're done your radiation stint, you ring this bell. 
It reminds me of chow time!

 I guess I should call Chapter 1 "Hey, You've Got Cancer!"

Today was my last radiation session.  What a relief.  Five weeks has come and gone and all I have is a wicked ass burn as a souvenir.  Oh, and fatigue and diarrhea. 

I dropped my dad off at the same hospital today as he had a follow-up from his eye surgery (thanks for loaning me the car, dad) so I was about an hour early for my radiation.  To my surprise, they took me early.  That's when the diarrhea kicked in.

I told them I'd be five minutes, I made a pit stop then walked into the radiation room.  I popped a diarrhea pill in front of them and told them it was just a diet pill.  I dropped my pants, got on the table, they spent about five minutes lining me up and then I had to abandon ship as I jumped off the table and ran down the hall asking them to give me four minutes.

I didn't feel so good but I was able to return and endure the last radiation.  I've been lucky, my side effects have been minimal.  I've only had about six days of diarrhea and, thankfully, not in a row.  My bad nausea has been in the early weeks and my fatigue is pretty consistent throughout but a 2 hr nap every day helps that.  The burn has been bad but this last week it's been tolerable as I started adding Palmolive dish soap in my Sitz bath.  It's tough on dishes but soft on hands.  My ass likes it.

The burn isn't pleasant.  I've had blistering and broken skin.  It hurts.  And it'll probably get worse next week but after that, I like to look at it as recovery time and I'll nap every day during that six to eight weeks before surgery and try and give Erinn a break from the kids.


These two girls were the radiation technicians that I dropped my

pants for most often throughout the five weeks.  Anne-Marie on the left,

me in the middle and Erinn on the right.  Thankfully, Erinn spotted me
going to the washroom right before Radiation #10 and we addressed the
full bladder issue then.

 Two days ago at radiation, I was asked into the Supervisor's office.  It felt like I was being called into the Principal's office.  Robert Brown just wanted feedback.  After 20 seconds he said "Oh, you're that guy!  We've had two staff meetings about you and I apologize profusely for what we put you through.  You should not have had to repeat your CT Scan, we should not have had to tattoo you for nothing then mark you with Sharpies and your first radiation session shouldn't have taken 3 hours.  And all with an empty bladder for the first nine sessions!"

He was very nice and clearly not every patient has these problems.  I take it that future patients will get the checklist of questions before they get radiated to ensure everything is as it should be.

I have tonight's chemo pills to take and then that's it for the pills.  Next week, when I'm feeling more out of the woods, I'll list off some of the more exciting of the ten pages of side effects I could've had.