First, I was feeling well enough to compete at the UG series Winterfest last weekend at Blue Mountain in Collingwood! I filled in for someone from a different gym and even though I just met my teammates that morning, I had a super time; lovely people :) The UG folks were selling the stylin toques I am sporting below, and they donated their proceeds ($500!) to our Love the Snatch foundation!
Second, I'M ALMOST DONE TREATMENT!!
I finished chemotherapy sessions in November. I had my ovaries suspended in December with a minor laproscopic surgery (they live in pockets behind my ribs now, and seem to be running along nicely, merrily secreting hormones as they should!).
After Christmas I started external beam radiation treatment and had my last one today! They were short, 5 minute appointments where I didn't feel a thing (except static electricity) and didn't even have to change into a gown. I just had to move my pants out of the way so they could see the tattoos that they had put on me in preparation (the size of freckles) and line me up with a laser Cartesian plane to ensure that the beam went to the same place each time. I had that done every weekday for 5 weeks, which is a pain in the butt but not so bad. Actually the road rage from driving downtown hamilton and up the jollycut, and then spending up to 30 minutes finding a parking spot at the hospital was far worse than the treatment itself.
HOSPITAL PARKING GARAGE TIPS:
- Driving 5km an hour in the parking garage will not make a spot appear out of nowhere. Get a move-on people.
- If it says "lot full" at Juravinski it probably isn't; there is no parking attendant there to update the sign so once it's up, all the old folk are scared away to the other garage and as people start leaving, spots free up without the sign changing
- Idle elsewhere, this is not the drop off roundabout
- Park in between the freaking lines. Seriously.
Side effects were not terrible for this. At first I was going to treatments in the morning, going to work for the afternoon, and going to squat/lift at the gym 3 days per week afterward. By the last 2 weeks I started to feel really tired and skipped the gym for the second last week, and this week I've been coming home afterward to sleep all afternoon. Otherwise, I had to up my starch intake a bit (some potatoes, not wheat!) to counter the gut irritation and consequent loose bowels. Oh and I had to switch to softer TP because everything is sensitive, and get a cream for my sore butt which felt like when your nose is dry and cracking in the winter time....
I plan to write up my more detailed gym log but, in brief and in general: I found that during chemo I could still WOD in between treatments, at reduced weights of about 50% and for about 10 minutes max. My muscles were too weak to lift much. During radiation I found the opposite. I'm too tired to WOD, but two weeks after surgery (and one month after chemo ended) I started lifting again and my 5 rep maxes were at about 75% pre chemo numbers. Within a month of Rippetoe's starting strength, my squat went up 40lbs, and my oly lifts were only 10 lbs off my maxes. Next up: get as strong as possible in preparation for my surgery.
Brachytherapy
I'm going to talk a bit about what I've found to be the hardest part (physically) so far. If you are at all squeamish, fair warning...but I did not find a whole lot of accounts of this on the internet and went in very much unprepared so here goes....
If I'm being honest, chemotherapy and radiation were...a lot easier than I expected. Maybe I'm lucky, maybe I was healthier than the average joe to start, but either way, it really hasn't been so bad. I didn't feel really sick, and the sick feeling I did have was short-lived. I've been mostly able to carry on with my normally scheduled life around all the appointments, including eating regularly and working out, all with only some extra sleep (9-10 hours daily).
Brachytherapy, or internal radiation, however, is no fun, to put it mildly. Brachy means "short distance", so this is higher dose radiation given right up against the cervix, as opposed to the external beam that zaps my entire pelvis. How do you administer internal radiation to the cervix? You're probably imagining correctly.
Here is a visual aid.
No, it is not a medieval torture device, it's what they shoved up my hooha on Wednesday. The ring goes against your cervix, the angled rod gets aimed at the uterus, and the spatula thinger is to get your rectum out of the way (the field of radiation is only 1.5 cm, it's really very effective).
From a poll of the ladies in my support group there seem to be a range of methodologies including one where you have to stay in a hospital room with that thing for 3 days (so you might not have the same experience as me!). At least I didn't have that one. All told I was at the hospital for about 3 hours. I got a muscle relaxant and an IV for hydration and partial sedation. You are supposed to be awake but sedated, but I am not convinced I was given sufficient drugs, I felt entirely alert the whole time. They take you into a miniature operating room where you are surrounded by no less than 7 people: 2 doctors, 2 nurses, 2 residents doing some learning, and a physicist waving a wand around from time to time to check for stray radioactivity or something (this is what completes the illusion of an alien abduction indicated in my title).
They stuff everything in and give you a catheter, which feels great (lies), strap you up with some sort of weightlifting style belt to hold it all in place, wheel you down the hall to get a CT and make sure all is as it should be (and to aim the radiation to greatest effect), wheel you back down the hall, abandon you for 10-15 minutes (I'm guessing) while it does it's thing, come back and take it all back out, and then send you to recovery for a half hour. The best way I can describe it is an hour long pap with a bit of extra pain at the start and finish because that ring is not small. The whole time I had mad cramps, but it was the removal part that was the worst. I cried. Partly at the pain, and partly at being overwhelmed by how much my vagina has ceased to be a private place.
I have two more of these scheduled (I've done two already) and, frankly, I'd rather do another round of chemo, complete with losing my hair again. *le sigh*
But then I'm done! Except for a hysterectomy but that's later, and probably not until after the CrossFit Open, which will be my 4th year participating and I'd hate to miss it, so WOOT.
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