Chemo and Radiation?

Radiation and Chemo

Someone asked what the radiation and chemo treatments are like.  As much as I want to say it’s a dignified process, and as much as they try to make it so, it’s just awful.

For chemo, I started out in the Chemo Room.  It’s a big antiseptic room with rows of large lounge chairs, television sets with no sound, and IV tubing and poles.  They try to make it look like a big hospital lounge but it doesn’t quite pass muster.  They try to prepare you in advance with a chemo movie.  The movie tells you about the bad effects but it shines them and glosses them and the effects are presented by healthy smiling actors made to look like they are cancerous. Believe me, the movie makes it sound like most people continue to work and do activities and such, and the best way to handle it is just get lots of rest.  BULLSHIT!  The first day of my chemo was suppose to last four hours in clinic and then a bag on my side for four follow up days along with radiation treatments for 15-20 minutes every weekday.  Weekends are off, because doctors want them off.  Plus you need the weekends to get the vomiting and diarrhea under control.  They don’t tell you that last bit.  They do tell you to bring a computer, or books, or something to entertain you during that first day of four hours, plus a blanket and pillow in case you want to nap.

My dear sweet husband wanted me prepared for my four hours, so he packed me a rolling bag filled to the brim.  It contained salty snacks, a borrowed laptop with games, small pillow, baby blanket (cute of him), lip balm, hand cream, sanitizer, mints, gum … well, you get the idea.  He called every girlfriend I had and they contributed to the bag.  I rolled in with my bag, selected a chair, and was immediately hooked up to an IV.  The room was ice cold and the first thing they announced was - be glad you brought your own blanket because we are out.  I guess they keep the room cold for those experiencing nausea from their second, third or fourth treatments.  I snacked, played computer games, and then grabbed the pillow and blanket and cat napped.  I was told the first IV was a strong antibiotic, the second was an anti-nausea medication (that should have been a big clue to me), and the third was a combination chemo medication.  When those emptied, I had to sign a waiver for a waist purse that contained more chemo and a pump that I would wear for the next four days.  At the end of the session, I was walked over to radiation for my first radiation treatment.

Daily radiation treatments are supposed to be for 28 weekdays straight.  I was escorted to a waiting area with two dressing rooms and about ten chairs.  Each day, I have to change into a hospital gown from the waist up.  I sit in the chairs until my name is called.  I then go into the radiation room where there is a hard, narrow, uncomfortable plastic table not much wider than a ship plank.  I have to strip from the neck to the waist.  I lay down on the table nude to the waist with my arms high over my head, and my feet rubberbanded together.  The techs draw marks all over my chest and breasts, and then sometimes cover the marks with clear bandaids to keep them from washing off in the shower.  The techs pull me back and forth with the thin sheets underneath me until they feel I am lined up the same exact way each day.  Then they leave the room.  The machine hums for five minutes at a time in about four or five positions, and then it’s over.  The treatment itself is not painful but it is cold and terribly uncomfortable. 

The pain comes after about the sixth treatment depending on the area being radiated.  The treatments are not painful, but the area being radiated begins to hurt like you are burned on the inside, which is what happens.  Since mine is right at the center of my breastbone, it feels like burning heartburn that does not go away.

The first weekend following the chemo was bad, and then the sixth day of radiation just compounded it.  Every orifice in your body starts to run.  If you are prone to yeast infections or ingrown toenails or thin skin that scabs easy or anything – multiply it by the worst circumstance of it you ever had and then multiply it again by a hundred.  Your immune system is dying so such things run rampant.  But the pain form the radiation and the nausea and diarrhea from the chemo keep you so busy you don’t care, so it doesn’t really matter – it just adds to your misery.

So, that’s chemo and radiation.  Want some?