"Decimated Skin"

Went in today for my radiation treatment and see my Radiation Oncologist.  Last week, my skin looked bad - so red it turned brown.  Over the weekend it began to blister up, stick together easily, and no longer itch just hurt.  When I move it pulls the skin and stretches it and it feels as if my skin is pulling apart - which it is since it is blistering...

I received my radiation with a painful squint on my face as they placed my arm in the arm holding thing.  It hurt to stay still for the short period of time but the feeling of your skin pulling apart is not fun - mind over matter and I stayed still.  As I make my way to the room to see my doctor which happens one time a week, all I want to do is curl up in a ball in the corner and just left alone.  When I don't feel good, I pull away from everyone and society.  I don't want to be petted or touched, I don't like people seeing me in pain or uncomfortable.  The doctor comes in and she sees my face, which is normally smiling, tense and my body moving slowly to pull the gowns sleeve off my shoulder with a low, deep growl.  She can tell I am obviously not comfortable or happy this morning.  I lie back and she examines my pink, red, brown blistering skin that stretches from the area under my arm on my torso, half way up my arm pit, across to my sternum, down my sternum to my last rib, across to the side and meeting the point on my back under my arm.  She examines it for about 4 minutes, tells me she will be right back and leaves the room with my chart.  Just with my experience over with the medical field over the last 5 years and my ability to be the 1% of everything that could happen, happening... I know this isn't good. 

The picture below is of the blisters... they are hard to see with this picture but this was taken on Friday so it isn't of this morning when it was slightly worse. The blue lines make sure the nurses line me up right with the radiation machine each day. 

I'm so tired at this point, I just can't get my mind thinking about what's going to happen.  I start to chuckle a little to myself, that she is going to come in and tell me one or multiple things, implant busted - need surgery, skin is dead - need skin graph and implant removal, or something that I can't imagine and some unimaginable crazy medical procedure needs to be done ASAP.  After about 10 minutes, she returns with Harry (a 6'2", salt and pepper hair and beard gentlemen that I met several times - very nice guy, easy to talk to, funny and evidently very smart because he plans out and makes the radiation machine do what it does behind the scenes).  They are talking business when they come in about my treatment plan and she looks at me says, "we are changing your treatment plan." They start talking techy stuff, measurements, and trying to find a way to change my plan and still be effective without killing my organs still.  She is obviously very concerned about the status of my skin as she begins to show him my skin she states "we've decimated her skin here, we can't continue treating this area."

They determine how they are going to change the plan and now he has to go back to his special room and begin adjusting the plates within the radiation machine and adjustments within the computer.  She is concerned the cream she prescribed the other week, may be making my skin reaction worse.  She states stop using the cream.  I let her know I stopped using the Vitamin E oil because it was burning when I put it on my skin.  She was thinking about options of things I could use on my severely burned skin that will not react with the treatments.  She found a sample of Mepilex Border with SafeTac Technology it is a self adherent soft silicone foam dressing for burns.  It works by wicking the nasty, oozing stuff from burn blisters.  She cuts it up and puts it on the two severest locations.  It did instantly help those areas I think mostly by supporting the skin so it didn't stretch and keeping it moist with burn ointment.

She asked if I was sleeping and unfortunately I haven't been sleeping well.  I've been taking Benadryl to help me sleep and control the itch but my fear being I might roll on my chest and rip the skin.  I told her I haven't been sleeping well and my concerns, she looked at me and said "the pain will wake you up and the damage is already done don't worry about rolling on it."  She gave me a Rx to help me sleep and control the pain. 

Today, I was out of it for the most part. Hard to stay focused and I had a severe headache most of the day. Got through the day and made some progress on the projects I'm working on and attempted to work from home tonight however my wonderful work laptop doesn't like my wireless internet so I can't capture screenshots I need.  I took one of my Rx pills and I am thinking at this point, it might not be a wise decision to try to build a training document at this moment.  I might just go to work early tomorrow morning since my radiation treatment is moved for tomorrow to the afternoon to give them enough time to make all the adjustments needed.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Disclaimer:  I apologize for the lengthy blog tonight and any mistypes or bad grammar...my Rx is kicking in and I'm relaxing more and more.