Gory detail warning. Check back Wednesday for a less physically descriptive post.
My skin has deterioted to the point that I wasn't able to Jazzercise this morning. Small pinpoint areas bleed briefly but dramatically. The external, raw parts have now reached the pain threshold met previously only by the internal pain from the swelling.
My "Southern Woman" card has no doubt been revoked if it had not already been recalled for my distasteful e-mail RSVP to a rehearsal dinner invitation last week or for any number of the various other etiquette faux pas I have cheerfully committed in my adopted Yankee region. My latest offense, being seen in public without a bra, could elicit from my grandmother the brand "brazen hussy."
I have "no case for comparison," but my radiation tech assures me that she's seen worse. My "oozing" places are relatively dry, she explains. She gave me a "greasy" ointment to help. She recommended that I celebrate the 4th by using the ointment several times during the day and wear an old undershirt I didn't mind messing up. Sounds like a fun holiday to me! Notherfrog and I also plan to churn our own ice cream to celebrate that today was the last of the tangent treatments. Wednesday starts the seven(?) targeted "boost" treatments of the surgical area.
Nasuea has returned. We've been trying to figure out if this is a side effect of the Tamoxifen or if it's my body's protest against the low-level but persistant pain. In any case, very little sits well. I would lose weight probably except I keep distracting myself with things like chocolate-covered cannoli and, of course, the chocolate ice cream we hope to make tomorrow. (My reasoning is: if you can eat very little, why not eat very decadent things?)
NotherFrog thinks that my doctors think I’m crazy for continuing to refuse their frequent offers for pain prescriptions. I keep hoping for a way to treat the cause and thereby stop the pain. My doctors keep trying to help me understand that treating the symptoms is as good as we can hope for. The fluid built up from the surgery and radiation can’t be eliminated by medicine and apparently won’t be willed away either. But I can’t work or drive if I’m on the heavy-duty pain killers, so I’m sticking with the ibuprofen. They tell me I can have up to 16 a day.
Time. That’s the only remedy my doctors say. My prayer is for patience. In the meantime, I'm making ice cream.
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1 comment:
hey,
I had a bad reaction as well.
I loooked as if I had a third degree burn.
My skin became a huge blister and then came off in the end.
My radiation oncologist said that was normal.
I took pictures of my skin,still not really sure why!
Tom, did not know I took shots, but discovered them when he downloaded some other photos from the camera into the computer.
He asked why I took them, I said maybe someday I might want to show somebody what I had to go through.
It gets better, but sometimes managing the pain with some stronger meds does make it easier and allows the healing to begin faster because you are less tense and relax a little better. Teddi our friend is a nurse practitioner said that is very important.
I have been there.
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