First Day.

Internal radiation is no joke. I have handled everything pretty well up until now I think, this was the hardest day by far!

I went in at 6 am and got home around 1:30. Everything I was worried about turned out fine. Specifically waking up after the general anesthesia. I woke up and was joking with the nurse all the way to the cancer center.

When I was under they had put a large rod directly on my cervix so when I woke up, I could barely move. This made it so that when I needed a CT scan 6 nurses had to pick me up and transfer me to a different bed. That went fine. Transferring me back, however, are where my problems started.

The rod they place on my cervix is very large and has 3 prongs on the tip. In order to protect my bladder and colon from radiation, they wrap it in gauze. A lot of gauze, which causes a lot of pressure. When they moved me back onto my bed, something shifted and I felt a lot of pain. I actually think it was the gauze pressing on my catheter making for a very painful 4 hours.

At first I just said this really hurts, but 30 minutes in I was in tears. I cried for 4 hours! I am almost embarrassed thinking back. They must think I am just young and can't handle pain. They kept giving me more and more pain meds, but nothing seemed to work. Not even Morphine. I have had a baby and that was nothing compared to this. Granted I had an epidural when I had Katie, but it still hurt. This was worse. My nurse was awesome, she kept a cold compress on my head and brushed my hair with her hand and helped me calm down. I had gotten so worked up at one point that I was breathing in really hard (like when you cry really hard) and the more I breathed in, the worse it hurt. I had to take slow deep breaths in order to stay calm.

My doctor said next week should be better. Now that he knows my tolerance, he will put Morphine in my IV while I am under. That way I wake up with the pain killers having a chance to work. Everyone cross your fingers because I honestly don't think I can deal with that much pain for the next 3 weeks! He also said that the first week is always the hardest because it is new to your body and the wait in between shouldn't be as long because they already know about where to direct the radiation.

Thanks for the continued support!