For anyone who has done a bowel prep, you'll hopefully understand when I say OMG!! That stuff is nasty!!! And waiting for the effects to kick in knowing it's going to hurt like hell when it works it way through - let's just say it was not a nice day.....
Tuesday I checked in nice and early to the hospital. Today was the day to get my internal rods placed (under a general anesthetic thank god) and start my 4 day stint as an inpatient getting around the clock internal radiation. First up, I headed to the surgical day unit to get prepped for surgery. The nurse assigned to me was brilliant. He reminded me of the actor John Corbett (think Raising Helen, Northern Exposure...among other things) - he sounded like him, looked like him... But best yet - he got my IV first pop, no problems, didn't hurt, no bruise. I love him just for that. His wife worked in maternity in another hospital, so I offered them both jobs up in Fort Mac if they felt like a change of scenery :) Always the manager trying to recruit (seriously - anyone with maternity experience....give me a call!)
Before I knew it, it was time to be transferred to the OR. I met with my doctor who reported that the MRI officially shows my tumour has shrunk, now measuring 4cm x 2cm x 2c, so pretty much half the size from when I started. Very good news indeed. My oncologist was very happy with this news also - as she said, for it to respond so well to treatment before the treatment has even finished is a very good sign. So, knock on wood, this is all a positive sign.
Next I was wheeled into the operating room, drugs pumped into me, and that familiar woozy feeling hit me, and I was out in la-la land. Next thing I know, someone is telling me its all over and I can open my eyes. I struggled to open my eyes, but apparently that was enough of a sign that I was awake, and I was off to CT to check the placement of the internal rods. I don't remember much, I was still drifting in and out of sleep. But after the CT, it was off for a repeat MRI. I remember thinking why didn't they do the MRI first so I could've slept through that? But alas, I was now more awake, and had to suffer through the MRI....again.....
Finally, it was all over and it was time to take me to my special private room. The beauty of getting internal radiation, you get your own lead lined room! The downside to getting internal radiation - you are not allowed to move. So I had to just lie there while other people dragged me across to the bed and got me into position. Then it was a matter of just lying there waiting for all the radiation gurus to decide on my treatment plan - they look at the scans and decide how much radiation I need to blast the crap out of the tumour and over how long. So I knew I had a few hours of sitting around, ahem, sorry, lying around, twiddling my thumbs waiting before the show got on the road.
Now one of the first things I noticed lying here not moving - it is very frustrating to have someone come to the door and speak to me. Because I can't move, not even lift my head, my visual span was very limited. I could basically only see whatever, or whoever was directly beside me in my line of vision. So I found it very annoying when someone would stand at the door and ask me something, or introduce themselves or whatever, and I had no idea who was standing there!
Finally, at 3.23 (I would learn very quickly how important the time was!) my radiation was set to begin. I was to receive 58 pulses, each pulse lasting 26 minutes. This freaked me out a little - my brachytherapy nurse had said that most pulses lasted around 15 minutes. This would mean that I would be alone for 15 minutes getting my radiation, but could have other people in the room for the other 45 minutes. So to hear that it was going to be 26 minutes, this left only 34 minutes in the hour that people could be in my room! And that's a lot of radiation! But it had to be done, lets get this started. So I get all hooked up to the radiation machine, and my lead door is slammed shut, and I'm left all alone to receive dose one of my brachytherapy. It didn't hurt, but I could 'feel' the radiation pulsing in and out, which felt kinda creepy. One down, 57 more to go....this is going to be a breeze!
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