It can stop any time now...really.

First, let me apologize for the length of this post.  It's not a novel, but a short story:

I am so done.  With all of this.  I'm tired.  So damn tired.  4 months post CA tx and 3 days post back surgery.  I'm so, so ready to have it all just stop and be finished with.   I'm sitting here in my bed bawling my eyes out for probably no good reason except that I'm feeling sorry for myself and I haven't had a BM since a tiny one last Tuesday, and now I have another damned grape.  (My affectionate term for an external hemorrhoid.)  At least I think that's what it is.  I don't know for sure since it just showed up yesterday and it's getting more uncomfortable by the hour it seems.  The last time I had one of these, the dr. said it was a thrombosed hemorrhoid, sent me to a surgeon who did the hemorrhoid surgery and diagnosed me with anal cancer for bonus points.  

I saw my rad onc two weeks ago for my first post tx DRE and vaginal exam.  He didn't feel the tumor but he did feel "lumps and bumps" anally and vaginally which he said could be just scar tissue from tx.  He said he felt optimistic despite the exam being inconclusive.  He ordered a PET scan which I ended up cancelling because I had a conflicting appointment for a new MRI and EMG for my back. (Sciatica)  PET scan was rescheduled, and again I cancelled it, this time because the previous day I had an appointment with the neurosurgeon to discuss the MRI & EMG results and surgery pro's and con's, and then I had to get pre-op tests done that same afternoon.  This required making two trips into and out of town, 40 minutes each way, because my two appointments were 5 hours apart, and there was no way I was going to stay in town, sitting in my car for all that time, in so much pain.  Taking a walk around the mall wasn't an option.   It was a very long day for me, riding in the car and feeling every bump in the road. I was miserable, exhausted and in agony.  Cancer was no longer front and center of my life temporarily, it was all about my back and my leg screaming at me in pain.  If you've never experienced nerve pain, it's difficult to describe.  There is simply no comparison to "regular" pain.  Narcotics does not even touch it.

I had my back surgery this past Thursday.  On the bright side, I no longer have the sciatica pain, so the surgery (Laminectomy and diskectomy at L4-5 and L5-S1) worked like a charm.  My back hurts like the dickens, but because it's from surgery, I know it will be relatively short lived pain, NOW I can reschedule the PET scan and actually get it done.

 I also cancelled the appointment I had for 9/5 with the colo-rectal surgeon for the anoscopy, anticipating that I won't be in any shape so soon after having surgery to have it done.  

 

Now, back to my "Grape."  Like I already said, I've been constipated since last Tuesday.  I've tried everything I can think of to get things moving again, but nothing has worked.  The only thing I haven't tried is an enema.  I think that I'll need to go that route tomorrow if things don't improve.  I'm just not sure how to go about doing it when I can barely move.   To go from having 5-6 BM's a day to zero is more than a little distressing, and now I have this grape to contend with.  It's tender to the touch, and about 1.5 cm.  I'd like to say it came out of nowhere...but obviously, it came out of somewhere.  I have not strained to have a bowel movement and pushed it out, I haven't had any bleeding and it's not a different color than the rest of the skin around my anus.  I'm not sure which doctor I should call about this. 

I'm sick and fed up with this one thing after another nonsense.  When's it going to stop? Thank you all for listening to my pity party rant.  I so appreciate having people understand.