Raising Awareness of Colo-Rectal Cancers
Well, V-I-C-O-D-I-N. It’s pretty amazing what one little white pill can do for someones mood. Holly has been in a lot of pain from the radiation, so her doctor gave her a couple of these until her skin heals.
We celebrated getting through the first stage of treatments last night with cup cakes from Icing on the Cake. Yummy!!!
Today is the last day that Holly has to go to radiation treatments. While we loved the people at the Good Sam Radiation Oncology Center, it has been rather taxing on her to manage getting the kids to the right place at the right time.
When I went, I geeked out on the device (pictured left). She lays on the table and the head of the machine (aiming to the right side in the above picture) rotates around her and delivers the dosage. The wings at the top of the machine measure her breathing so that the dosage is extremely pinpointed. The whole idea of the radiation is to shrink the tumor so that, when she gets her surgery, they don’t have to cut out as much of the colon as they would without it.
The effects of the radiation, especially in the past week or so have been pretty bad. Imagine getting a bad sunburn and then being forced to sit in the sun everyday. It literally cooks your skin. It makes you nauseas. In general, it isn’t a whole lot of fun. The doctors told us that she would feel the effects and that they may continue to get worse for 2 weeks or so, then it will be about 2 weeks start feeling better, then she goes to surgery. Not really the month that we were looking forward to.
Tim Nelson recently told me that cancer hates happiness. I thought that this was a great way of looking at things. We’ve been relatively happy all things considered. I believe that this is what has kept Holly both sane and successful.
Bowser & Blue. Great one liners.
Plus, if you have rectal cancer and can’t make a butt joke, you’ve got bigger problems.