A walk in the park.

Hello lovely people 

So here i am again as i promised in my last blog. So yes after chemo and radiation i had to go through three sessions of brachytherapy. Brachytherapy is more intrusive and more intense type of radiation therapy. The nurse described these procedures as walk in the park. So i was not much scared about it as i should have been as i later found out. I was rather excited that i am about to finish my treatment. My chemo doctor was certain that i could be cured and i wanted to believe in his belief. So i was told i can go back the same day after the procedure. I got in the hospital for the night as they needed to prep me for my first brachy. They needed to cleanse my bowls by making me drink horrible tasting laxatives and no food. So my trips to the toilet Kept me occupied for most of the night. The morning of the procedure arrived, they took me to the procedure room. Anaesthetic came and got ready with a big syringe to give me epidural. So i was given two doses. She touched me around my pelvis area and inner thighs to check if i am numb. I couldn’t feel anything. So i was good to go. Doctors and nurses started their mission of putting brachytherapy special applicators. These long, hollow tubes were loaded with the brachytherapy devices, such as seeds. The tubes were inserted around the tumour tissue. During brachytherapy cancer treatment, radioactive material is placed inside the body with these tubes. So the applicators were placed inside my body, anaesthesia had been given. Now the doctors had to move me to the other floor for MRI. They wanted to check the placement of their brachy tubes. It was a standard procedure. So while lying on the hospital bed, being rolled to the elevator i started feeling my toes, then i felt the giant machine like thing inside my vagina. I was in horrible pain, i started to feel as if my pelvis and my vagina will burst any second. It was worse than child birth. I was in full panic mode. By the time we reached the MRI room the entire anaesthesia wear off, and i was looking at the eyes of my Masked doctor. I told him about my pain, he looked shocked and angry at the anaesthetic who has accompanied us to the room alone with nurses. Giving me another epidural was out of question as i needed to sit up for that which couldn’t happen because of all the equipments inside me body. So there i was. Doctor asked me if i want to get back and get the machines removed. I asked them to carry on because i was counting the days until I was finished with my treatments. So i carried on bearing the pain. It kept on getting worse. That anaesthetic gave me some heavy pain killers but nothing worked. I thought from here i would go straight to the procedure room. Twist in the story i had to wait because doctors and nurses need time to make plan. I knew that part but didn’t know that planning would take at least two hours. The worst part was i could move or touch any part of my body because that would move the placement of the tubes. Oh great why can’t things go normal with me ever. Anyways i was in the waiting room on the bed with my husband sitting on a chair. I told him that I am in great pain. He answered, “cancer treatments are painful.” That day i felt like crying, we didn’t ever have a good healthy relationship ever. He always had a strange masculine superiority thing about himself and he hadn’t known men any other way. But we had our moments and he had always assured me that he loved me. So i trusted him irrespective of his behaviour. We had children too so i didn’t want to give them a divorced parents’ children childhood. But after my diagnosis it was getting hard to tolerate gaslighting and toxicity. He made it seem like as if that was my fault. It is a topic of some other day. I will talk about it some other time. So yeah i was in pain, unable to move feeling heart broken and discouraged. I thought that worst had happened. I am ridiculously optimistic in that way. How wrong was I. During the treatment one of the needles from the tubes pricked my insides. There was blood. So much blood. I was moved to the general ward with packing of cotton gauze inside my cervix area to stop the bleeding. I felt as if i am about to go unconscious. I was so weak, disoriented and exhausted. My doctor came and asked me something about blood infusion consent. My husband had left to pick up kids from school by then. By the way he was not working that time and i was the sole earner at that time. Everything was going well with me working full time and earning alright and he was looking for another work. But then cancer happened. And things changed suddenly. However, i had to get back to work after finishing my three brachytherapy sessions. I was weak, but i had a stronger willpower so i decided to work again which proved later not a very good idea. Okay okay a topic for another day. Yeah so i gave consent for blood infusion after profuse bleeding ordeal. I couldn’t go home. My kids were waiting but i was again stuck with a bag with tubes attached to my veins. Next day afternoon I finally got discharged. I was given appointment for my second brachytherapy. I was very nervous on the day of my second procedure, all the memories from the previous procedure were haunting me. But amazingly it went well and anaesthesia worked and i got to go back to my children same day. This gave me confidence and i went for my third one thinking ‘one more and then I am done with cancer.’ What followed changed my life forever. Talk soon.

Hugs 

P