Fatigue Anyone?

The generally accepted 'medicines' to treat and resolve cancer are chemotherapy and radiation. Of the two, more is published about the side effects of chemotherapy; nausea, hair loss, fatigue, etc. What is not publicized as much are the side effects of radiation; primarily 'sun'burn, pain in the radiation area, and (surprisingly) fatigue.

Now I understand the sunburn effect; the cumulative effect of repeated dosages of radiation. Basically, lots of heat directed to the same general location five days a week for a period of a month or more. This leads to redness of the skin, pealing, etc. The issue is that you can't put just any old lotion on the skin in case the lotion or whatnot negatively affects  the effectiveness of radiation. So you are at the mercy of the doctors to tell you what you can and cannot use and when.

And I understand, for the most part, the pain experienced by most radiation patients. Radiation therapy is applied over  a finite, defined area as opposed to the molecular level. So, radiation can, and does, affect the nerves running through the radiated area. That and the sunburns, along with skin pealing, the buildup of scar tissue (and the need to flex and keep the scar tissue broken down), contribute to the pain experienced in the radiated area. With mild to moderate pain, Aleve should do the trick.

But it's the fatigue I was not prepared for. In all my reading, I don't recall any passable mention of fatigue. Fatigue is entirely understandable when undergoing chemotherapy, so why does a person experience fatigue when undergoing radiation? Simple, or so I am told.  This is due to inflammation in the radiated area, to which the body reacts by working extra hard  to reduce said inflammation. As with any localized fever, our bodies draw on our reserves to battle the war going on inside.

Sounds simple doesn't it. But what is so amazing is that after only eight radiation treatments, where the total radiation time is roughly one minute per treatment, I am totally wiped out ten minutes after treatment. I almost fell asleep today, going home from radiation.And once I got home, all I wanted to do was sleep - for three hours! I talked to a couple folks, and this is to be expected. And even more fun, it will get worse before it gets better. Lovely...not.

So, here I am at 1:36 AM, fighting sleep, writing this post. Why? Because I want to communicate this sad state of affairs. I sleep about 12 - 14 hours a day now, when I thought I would be getting back to normal (after surgery). My eyelids are drooping, and I can hardly hit the keys (including spell-check). I keep dozing off, jerk awake and check the screen to be sure I didn't fat-finger a bunch of gobbledy gook. But I am afraid that if I don't share this, I will forget just what it is like and will minimize this par of my cancer treatment.

So now that I've gotten this off my chest, I am headed for my bed. And with any luck, I will be able to get up by 10:00 or 11:00 tomorrow. I would so love do something without swooning towards the bed after 2-3 hours.