Positively Phoebe

...then hell is in me.  In my ass, to be precise.  At least, that would explain the fire going on back there. Yeah.  Remember when I was bitching up a storm about my "legpits"?  Well that was an effing cakewalk compared to this.  Somehow I guess I thought that once external radiation was done, things would start getting better down below.  Oh, Stupid Phoebe.  How you could not have been more wrong.  Since that much anticipated day a week ago, things in the side-effect area have gotten nothing but a bazillion times worse.  The raw red skin and weeping gray blisters that once tormented me up front have now taken up residence in the crack of my ass.  And, uncomfortable as it may have been in the front, I could at least make some effort to cool off/dry out the legpit blister-thon by laying like a starfish, limbs splayed as wide as possible in every direction with various and sundry pillows propping up this or that.  But you know what?...

I'm really trying to... I have to keep telling myself that if these side effects are kicking my ass so brutally, then the treatment itself MUST be bashing the living hell out of the cancer.  God, I fucking hope it is.  It better be. Here's where I am today: swollen, cracking skin in places you really don't want to have swollen, cracking skin. Round two of blisters on top of blisters in that un-named 'legpit' area - these are so horrid that just the act of walking makes the blisters pop (very painful) and seep, and the resulting moisture seems to make MORE blisters happen. And more pain. And more, just, YUCK.  And then, on top of all that, I literally screamed and cried in pain just from going to the bathroom.  I'm not normally a screamer - it was almost frightening to hear the sounds coming out of my own mouth.  Again, I had to shower after because I could not cope with the pain of wiping my own butt.  Sobbed through the entire thing. I'm sure that th...

With 20 radiation treatments down and 5 to go, I am really trying to stay upbeat and positive.  I mean - I'm almost there.  A week from today will be my first day of being DONE with part one of this treatment.  That's pretty awesome.  But it's hard, at certain moments, to stay positive.  I can't help thinking how much easier this would be if I'd managed to get cancer in a less humiliating area... Somehow, when the doctor told me that the side effects of this radiation would be mostly localized, the fact that everything "down there" would be in misery didn't really penetrate.  Somehow, it never occurred to me that I would have to take a shower after pooping, because the simple act of wiping my poor, fried butt would just be too painful to bear.  Or that just walking down the stairs would bring a tear to my eye because my "legpits" would be filled with blisters.  Or that I would be in possession of so many ointments and salves and goos to smea...