The race involved surgery (and I have the 8 inch scar to prove it) and external radiation (see my earlier post) and internal radiation. Yes, internal radiation is exactly what you think it is. I've been trying to think of how to write about it without seeming indelicate for three weeks now, but it's nearly impossible. There is no other way to put it, they use a giant radioactive tampon. Ok, it's not giant, but it's definitely larger than the biggest tampon I ever used. That is why they give me a dialator to help me prepare for the treatment. Again, there's no real way to talk about this without seeming indelicate. "Prep" was not exactly pleasant for me, (let's remember that I am quite literally the 44 year old virgin) so I was very thankful that they prescribed me a few happy pills to take before I went the first couple times!
When I got there they called me back, put me behind a curtain in the CT room and asked me to strip from the waist down. That's when the spiffy underwear came out. Imagine the ugliest pair of cotton granny panties you've ever seen with two three inch strips of velcro running from front to back and yes, it has a huge slit in the crotch. I swear it must weigh two pounds! Not exactly Victoria's secret if you know what I mean. They are evidently much more private and secure than what they used to do, which I was believe was have you lie there exposed and tape things in place. Here's the spiffy underwear...see I told you.
They asked me to lay on the CT table and suddenly the room was full of people examining my private area. Two of the techs I'd had before (a Hispanic lady and the handsome, sweet male tech, of course), my Filopino doctor and these two new guys. One was Asian and one was Eastern European. I say that because they looked it and sounded it. Everyone had their white coats on and suddenly I felt like I was in a bad James Bond movie. (I told one of the nurses that yesterday and she nearly died laughing.)
They asked me to lay on the CT table and suddenly the room was full of people examining my private area. Two of the techs I'd had before (a Hispanic lady and the handsome, sweet male tech, of course), my Filopino doctor and these two new guys. One was Asian and one was Eastern European. I say that because they looked it and sounded it. Everyone had their white coats on and suddenly I felt like I was in a bad James Bond movie. (I told one of the nurses that yesterday and she nearly died laughing.) That's when they bring out "Big Jim" (no lie, that's what the nurse calls it) Thankfully I had taken my happy pill, so I was very calm about the whole thing. Evidently, I was the first person they used the spiffy underwear on so everyone was very interested in looking at my pelvic region. Ah, the humiliation continues. But they insert the applicator (tampon, see I told you) with the radioactive stuff in it and attach a wire to it. Then they sent me through the CT scanner to make sure everything is in place. That's when the laying still begins. Because once they get it in there, you can't move...for an hour and half! Thankfully the nurse (I've learned that the nurse in this has all the sense and knowledge) told me not to drink much that morning. Evidently they have to plan what they are doing, I'm just hoping that was what they were doing and not watching the NCAA tournament or playing parchesi. So they rolled me off the table and placed me on a gurney and took me to the 6X8 waiting room. Thankfully it had a TV and TLC so I could watch "What Not to Wear", but thanks to the happy pills, I really just drifted in and out of slumber.
Finally they came back for me and wheeled me into one of the treatment rooms. The guys from the James Bond movie came back and ran a wire from a machine that once again looked like something from Moonraker to whatever was coming out of the tampon. The doctor said, "you won't feel anything." The cast of The Spy Who Loved Me left the room quickly to watch through a camera behind a lead door. (Once again, why haven't we come up for a better treatment for this disease?) Well, it didn't hurt, but I most certainly felt something. I looked down and the little machine was all red and green lights in a circle and the wire was just vibrating like crazy. In five minutes it was over. They came back and Asian man unhooked me and Eastern European guy had a device in his hand. Oh, yes, really, it was a Geiger counter! He checked the machine and then he checked me with it! Ever since I started this process people have been teasing me about glowing. This was the first time I thought it might be a possibility. The nurse waited for the rest of them to leave and removed "Big Jim", wheeled me back to the room, with a brief stop so that Geiger Counter Man could check me again, I put on my clothes and Sharon drove me home where I promptly went to sleep. Ah, happy pills. That was verse one and verses two and three were very much the same except for verse three I forewent the happy pill just to prove to myself I could handle it.
I am so grateful to God for the strength and peace that he granted me through this. I am also so humbly overwhelmed by the amount of love, prayer and care I've received throughout, I am truly unworthy. I owe thanks and gratitude to God most of all, but to so many of his children as well.
Andrea, thanks for being there when I was diagnosed, you were the perfect person because you could ask the questions when all I heard was the echo of cancer in my head. Dawn, thanks for helping me move into action right away and not sit and let it take over. Dale and Sharon, thank you for providing the safe place to heal in everyway. Becca for putting together my very own facebook prayer team; how that encouraged me and reminded me I was loved. Kathy and Kim thank you for driving me to the hospital that early, early morning and wait for hours for them to call me back. Molly, Todd, Zac, Sharon, Hannah and Dawn for breaking that "2 visitors per patient rule" during my surgery. Andrea, Dawn, Hannah and Sara for staying with me in the hospital. Thanks for being true friends and not saying anything about oh too revealing hospital gowns and medicine that made me loopy. Jim and Anita for at the last minute giving up your bedroom, rearranging your lives, making me yummy food and letting me stay at your house when I came home from the hospital. To my brothers for taking off time from their jobs and coming from far off to stay with me. For the many, many meals and cards I received, for the offers of rides to treatment, lunches out, visits, facebook messages and most of all prayers, I am forever grateful.
It was rainy this morning when I started this post, the first thunderstorm of the spring, so gray it was almost scary. Now the sun is out and the birds are singing. Kind of an appropriate place to stop. Just a reminder from God that there's always an end to the storms you run through in the race of life.
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