HOW ABOUT PAIN DURING CANCER RADIATION?

 

I get so many weird conditions that it's really quite ridiculous!

I'm experiencing post-surgery cancer radiation at a very nice Scripps place in Vista, CA.

My course is 33 total, and I have done 16 treatments.

It hurts!  When the surgeon removes one's thyroid gland and several dozen lymph nodes in the general area of the neck, that's rough enough with the healing process.

But this burning and severe pain INSIDE the throat and esophagus is much worse than I anticipated. The external skin burn is tolerable with lots of Aquaphor ointment slabbed on a few times a day, along with ice packs.

I have ice packs and soft & flexible ice pads wrapped around my neck in front most of the day, tied on, and when I try to sleep at night. The ice helps.

A positive aspect of pain in different body areas is that it takes one's mind away from the lumbar & neck pain that is a mainstay of my life. 

Radiation victims--you have my empathy!

A BAD PAIN DAY

 

Today's pain is the same area and intensity as my December 5th post. Right side lumbar nerve spot. 

Do you get aggravated quicker by little things when in this state? I suppose you do. How could you not?

I won't say more because I'd regret it. 

I've tried gabapentin a few times over the years and am thinking about it again. Last time I brought it up with my doctor I was told it would be a problem with serotonin drugs. Not true but one better not argue with the doctor who controls the primary pain Rx.

Something will move a tiny bit and I'll get some relief. You know the deal.

The nerve from my thyroidectomy in the back of my neck has gone intermittent, thank goodness. I wrap my neck always with a folded up t-shirt for neck firmness or wear the hard neck brace but I think whatever hit that nerve during dissection of lymph nodes is healing, getting less inflamed. Something positive in the whole circus of my physical body, anyway.

A NEW STRIP OF NERVE PAIN IN MY NECK FOLLOWING A MAJOR SURGERY

 

It's been a while since I posted about chronic pain. My lumbar nerve pain continues unabated, temporary relief only from a prescription med, TENS unit, ice packs, braces/supports, NSAIDS, massager device.

Since my last post, I got diagnosed with thyroid medullary cancer, a bad type, and had surgery for a total thyroidectomy with dissection of a large neck area to remove lots of lymph nodes from ear to ear, and extending from the top of my sternum to under my chin.

The gravity was a surprise, and a six-hour surgery is an ass-kicker, I can state. 

Something good happened in surgery. The aggravating pain from a neck side muscle since my last neck fusion is GONE. The guy dissected lots of tissue and I think he released or cut whatever little muscle fibers were causing me daily muscle pain in my left neck side with extension to headache. GONE.

Thank you.

However, a nerve behind my right ear extending down about 4 inches vertically has been on fire since the surgery. Some nerve got injured, a nerve that attaches to my hairline and is tender as a baby's butt--in a bad way. This nerve strip hurts like the devil! Dammit.

Today--I'm adding to this post Jan 2, 2026--I went to the radiation oncologist to get my face/neck mask made to use for radiation treatments that begin in a week. I am troubled by the misery to come--pain, rashes, dysphagia, tissue damage in the area to be irradiated. No choice. 

Getting fed up!

CHRONIC NERVE PAIN

 

Jesus, this is a bad few days of nerve pain in one spot. Today's worse and I'm aggravated. Nerves between L-3 to L-4, and L4-L5. My original point of injury over 45 years ago. 

I have all the Rxs I'm allotted today on board and they're doing a whole lot of nothing. 

 The TENS unit is on high, ice packs, a brace, and I'm grouchy as heck.

The dog keeps giving me her sad eyes look, wanting me to walk her around outside a few blocks or wrestle with her tugging on her toys, but not today.

I'd like to take a big nail, and hammer it right into the pinched nerve in retaliation, but that's plain crazy. 

Eventually, some part in the area will shift a centimeter or so and the pressure will move to another lumbar spot. Seems like the flexeril sometimes loosens up a muscle, allowing a shift of position. A guy from New York City didn't have any business riding bulls for recreation at age 20 while stationed at Camp Pendleton. We humans; we do foolish things. Serves me right.

On another topic, I got into this old novel from the 1950s, written by Truman Capote: Breakfast at Tiffany's. The man's writing is stunningly great. His characters are so well-defined and lively; their conversations realistic; and I'm halfway through it on my second reading day. 

THANK YOU TO VA HOSPITAL, LA JOLLA, CA

 

As a service-connected disabled Navy vet, I received excellent medical treatment yesterday during my visit to the hospital. I fear for the impending death of the Affordable Care Act.

There are MANY fewer employees nowadays working at the VA due to trump's consolidation of the money supply, but those who still work there are at the top of their games. Polite, professional, on-time, genial, helpful, and I am grateful to them.

Millions of Americans are worrying today about how they will be able to afford health care when Republicans strip them of it. Quality, affordable health care is a human right..

.

WHAT? Another surgery done. The VA got me good and removed a bad cancer deal--total thyroidectomy last week. ADD in more pain!

RODEO AND THE PAIN THAT COMES WITH AGING

     

THE ICE CHIPPER THAT STICKS INTO MY L3 - L4 NERVES

TWO SIDES OF THE LUMBAR SPINE TAKE TURNS STICKING IT TO ME. 

The right L3-L4 spot is my worst pain spot. My ice pick reference is a memory from childhood where there was an old cellar with some VERY old tool implements left by a previous seller. Think of a screwdriver with a rough wood handle, then 5 inches of thin steel with a tip sharpened by years of use actually chipping blocks of ice into smaller chunks. I guess this was before ice cube trays. I imagine a tool like that sticking into a nerve, a sensory nerve, nudging the nerve and poking in hard and persistently unannounced throughout the day. The stab prompts an immediate pain reflex that kicks my right leg out at the knee while jerking my head and upper torso backward. It's ridiculous! It scares the dog and annoys any person nearby.

This stabbing takes turns, switching back & forth multiple times during the day. It alternates sides. When the left side suffers, the right side gets a break. Vice versa, the right side prods the nerve, giving the left side pain relief. My right side is much worse than the left. Getting injured sitting on a bull when the chute gate opens puts the rider at a 50/50 chance of incurring an injury. On probably 2 out of 3 rides something gets injured, a muscle pulled, a bad bruising, etc. One Saturday morning in 1978, a certain bull threw me hard against a broken steel fence post and dislocated something in my right L3-4 area, about 3 inches to the right side of my spine; I get to think about it every day since I was about age 50. He busted a rib also on that same ride but that's no big deal.

The good thing about getting injured when you're young is that you heal up fast. What you don't know is that 30 years later the pain is gonna' come back and it's gonna' be there to stay. And this injury GROWS to affect lots of parts around it. An interesting aside to this bull wreck is that my right leg was out of whack for 2 days until something popped back into place. I sure wish I knew what it was but the physician on duty in the Navy Hospital ER that afternoon refused to give me an x-ray. Why not? He chewed me out because he had strong feelings that rodeo was cruelty to animals. 

Rodeo? A fine traditional American pastime? Why, it's 'Americana!' I wonder what he thinks about baseball....

 

I Chickened Out of my 4th Spine Surgery! (It would have been my 4th.)

 

I already regret not going through with the ALIF procedure my great ortho surgeon wanted to perform.

A week before the schedule, with major concerns about pain Rx meds post-op, and a pharmacist again interfering with my prescriber's Rx, I didn't dare move ahead.

Why can't these 3rd party pretend doctors stay where they belong--I am speaking of pharmacists with no patient knowledge, with no patient best interests anywhere in their jaded brains.

Pharmacists--you are fungible--you are not providers. Follow orders. The academicians have issued a professional undergraduate degree--a 6-year program--and told you that you have a doctorate. It is not accurate. 

Now the physical therapist academics have followed suit and they call their graduates doctors, saying the physical therapist has a doctorate.

Good Lord! Face the facts of academic history. A bachelors degree is 4 years. Add 2 more years for a masters degree. Add 3 more years of study in which you present "new knowledge" in a subject, write a thesis--basically author a book, and defend & support your "new knowledge or patent addition to the existing body of knowledge before a board of your peers.

This fallacy must stop. Blocking the medication prescribed for a patient is NOT your role. Assisting insurance companies in blocking therapy should not be your role. Stay in your lane.

Not only did a retail pharmacist block post-op pain therapy with that being the sole cause of cancellation of a surgery to get 2 new metal lumbar discs. But this was the final step for me.

I was concurrently diagnosed with a new cancer which appears to require a head & neck surgeon. 

Also, the expectation of a 12-week recovery along with medication fears shut me down.

Don't get old....

** Three months update: The nerve is agonizing & infuriating. Why didn't I get that surgery done? I can be such a loser sometimes.