Positively Phoebe

That being the case, I figured this morning I would bring you all back into my humiliating world of post-treatment side effects. Today's installment of self-inflicted humiliation will revolve around the dreaded vaginal dilator. I HATE THIS THING!!!!! Seriously, I know I will hate it less if I use it more, but GAWD!  It is just terrible.  It hurts.  It makes me cramp.  It makes me bleed.  And the really sad part is... it's pretty small.  Like, its diameter is considerably LESS than the average wiener, and definitely less than that of the one I'm spending the rest of my life with.  Ahem... Every doctor appointment, they tell me "If you're having regular sex (at least 3 times a week), you won't NEED to use the dilator."  Excuse me, but I have not had sex three times in the past YEAR, people!  I was bleeding like a stuck pig for 11 months and then going through horrific cancer treatments for 3 months and the remaining side effect...

Remember that post about my last follow-up appointment?  You know.  The one where the doctor was all jazzed about my "beautiful cervix"?  Remember how awesome that was? Well... there is something that happened at that visit that I did NOT tell you about.  Something not just less awesome, but less THAN awesome.  Something I was hoping to avoid, but apparently cannot. The dreaded vaginal dilator. Yep.  My incredible shrinking vagina needs assistance.  Ugh.  And because both Ryan and I are so tweaked out about everything being all askew up in there, the whole "have sex at least three times a week to keep everything working" thing is totally not happening.  In all honesty, we've managed to "have relations" (as the nurse called it) exactly once - on that night at Mohican.  Where it hurt me and terrified us both and seems to have dried up (no pun intended) any desire either of us may have had to get it on. So yeah.  When...

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...

And if not, what the hell do you call the leg-crease-liner equivalent of the armpit? Well... whatever it's called, mine are my new enemy.  Thus far, my side-effects have been mostly vague things like nausea and fatigue.  Well that's all changed now. I was told from the very beginning that (aside from fatigue) the radiation side effects would be "localized".  The bladder and bowels would be irritated and I'd end up losing hair (not the sort one needs a Sammy Hagar wig to cover... but rather would send one merkin shopping instead) and having a sunburn-like thing going on. Yeah.  That was putting it mildly.  Aside from the free brazilian and the four-alarm fire in my entire nether-area, I also now have horrid blisters forming in the aforementioned "legpit" area.  Painful ones.  Like, walked around Disneyworld for twelve hours in a new pair of Doc Martens ones.  Some of the blisters have blisters.  I'm not even exaggerating.  The mag...