I was on the phone last night with a friend who has recently been reading my blog. She asked me if the cauterization had happened yet. I said no, that it will start the day after Labor Day.
When I woke up this morning, I realized that I probably need to clarify some of my terminology since much of my language is colored with my fears and neurosis about this whole process...
What I so flippantly refer to as cauterization is actually internal radiation treatments which will be conducted through the stint in my cervix that was surgically implanted on Friday. The actual term for this is "brachytherapy". The reason why I call it being cauterized is that from what I have read about the side effects, they are very much like being burned from the inside out. There will likely be major scarring, with probably some long-term or permanent side affects from this. So, technically, the term is brachytherapy or internal radiation rather than cauterization. My fear speaks out of turn sometimes.
Friday, after the implant I was in a lot of pain. I slept most of the day, thanks to pain pills which didn't really take care of the pain (like mega-serious menstral cramps) but which allowed me to sleep through the worst of the pain. There was still a lot of pain at times on Saturday, but not nearly as much.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday, during the times that I was awake, I was struggling to not throw up. Even though my chemo was on Wednesday and I felt okay Wednesday and Thursday, the nausea seems to be a delayed effect on me much of the time. Today, so far, the nausea is very minimal.
I am still lucky in that even though I struggle with nausea much of the time, the only time I have actually thrown up was when I was running 102 fever with my PICC line infection.
My Medport site still is sore and starting to itch. I'm assuming that is a good thing because it means that it is starting to heal. The bruising is starting to lighten up a little. It's kind of weird when I touch the spot, I can feel a hard foreign object under my wiggly skin and the small indent where the chemo needle goes. It pulls some when I sleep on my right side or reach over my head, and that makes me a little nervous about whether or not the stitches will hold it in place, but I know I will get over it. One of my friends told me that it only hurts about a week, then it is like it is a part of your body. It kind of reminds me of some weird science fiction movie where people have secret micro chips imbedded under their skin by aliens or by the government or by the alien influenced government.
I think I'm watching too much tv in these lazy days of not going to work. Going a little stir crazy. Working on trying to get the office ready to paint.
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