Better Living through Chemistry

An old colleague of mine once jokingly referred to her daily medication as "better living through chemistry."

Last Sunday night, my first side effects from the radiation appeared in a matter of hours. The one side effect that I was hoping to avoid the most--mouth sores.

They completely took me by surprise because I wasn't expecting the side effects to show up until the beginning of the third week. But here I was, 10 days into my treatment, with radiation blisters covering the inside of my mouth. The good news is that they are limited to the left side of my mouth. The bad news is two-fold: 1) they're everywhere and 2) they're huge.

The pain I'm experiencing now is beyond the level of pain I had even before my first surgery. I know that seems impossible, yet it is true just because instead of a singular patch to deal with, it is all over the left side of my mouth.

After my radiation treatment on Monday, I met with my doctors and they, of course, didn't like what they saw. I was immediately written several prescriptions and given some directions on how best to deal with the pain since there is no way to really eliminate it.

What started on Monday quickly became a daily routine. Usually I meet with my doctors for a check-up once a week with that day being Monday. Following the Monday appointment, the resident informed me that he wanted to see me again the next day, Tuesday, following my radiation treatment. On Tuesday, the pain was still overwhelming and so I made plans to be checked on again on Wednesday. Wednesday was better, but still pretty bad. However, they wanted to see how the pain medication was working over the course of a day or two before changing anything. So I got to skip the face-to-face appointment on Thursday but had it again today, Friday.

By the time it was all said and done, I had met with radiation oncologist 3 times, the radiation oncologist's resident 5 times, the medical oncologist 1 time and the nurse another 2-3 times. Once I left the hospital, I usually made my daily trek to the pharmacy down the street from my studio. The only day this week that I did not pick up a new prescription or get a refill was yesterday. Additionally, I had to make two more trips to a different, larger pharmacy that actually had the pain medication that I needed--now that's some strong stuff!

So that was this week. I'm currently doped up pretty heavily. Enough so that it is hard to focus with two eyes open. Let's just say I'm mastering the art of typing with one eye closed. Of course, when I'm not working hard to focus my eyes, I'm usually either beginning to nod off or waking up after already nodding off.

So that was my week in a nutshell. I certainly can't complain because at least we have the pain medicine we need in this country. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like for those who aren't automatically in the wealthiest 1% of the world's population. I just can't and I'm extremely grateful that I don't have to.