Dear cmc1: I had sedation for the pelvic brachy surgical implant and was in the hospital almost 3 days (2 1/2) for 4 radiation treatments. I had to be in hospital, not outpatient, due to anotomical differences substantial enough to require inpatient care. I was under full sedation for some hours while the OncRad doc planned his treatment - it was hybrid tandem-needle, although this was already anticipated need from scans. I'm wondering when you mention sedation are you referring to the implant or the actual radiation? It may be that the tools being used on this recurrence are different due to issues with your previous treatment?
I didn't have trouble with the full sedation, and I'm glad I was out like a light for it. I had a morphine drip the first day, and this got me through the worst of it. By that same evening I had no tolerance for the morph and stopped it completely, taking cherry flavored liquid tylenol every 6 hours. And I did have to stay flat on my back in bed 3 days. Strangely, morphine makes time pass quickly and you have no idea, yet the slow drip doesn't make you feel drugged. It would've been an easier way to pass 3 days without movement.
We're all worried about recurrences. Some of us, myself included, have had extensive treatments - pelvic brachy certainly means just that. Also 25 external beam before the brachy & 10wks taxol-carbo & cicplaitin.
There are so many symptoms after treatment - side effects and complications that we're not told about. I keep seeing the phrase (used even here by patients at times) "Late Effects". This is medical jargon, It means side effect or complication, but is mystifying and designed to sound benign. We have surgery sometimes for these "Late Effects". But think of it: nobody every died from Late Effects. People die from complications, side effects of illness or treatments. I"ve never seen the term "Late Effects" used anywhere else in medical journals, and I've read them for years from my course of studies. Late Effects can be permanent or temporary changes in bowel or bladder, minor or major in nature. (and why hasn't the needle moved on this aspect after decades?) Some side effects require surgery to repair, fitsulas being the obvious one - painful, non cancerous growths.
A radiology NP recently told me that radiation fibrosis usually sets in 6 to 12 mths after the treatment. This is ANTICIPATED. But nobody told me, but I did read that it could occur (online, google searches). It's actually expected, not a mere possibility. Wow. There's surely a list of things that are anticipated after treatment, but the patients aren't being told, and symptoms aren't tracked that well from what I've read in NIH articles - patients get relief from different doctors oftehtimes. And nobody gives us the survey to fill out. I've never gotten a survey about any of my symptoms from any practicioner - and this includes prescription drugs. Doctors are the ones who submit the data, and if they don't collect it - or don't think it's important - it never shows up on RX data or medical journals.
One NIH study of cancer patients and their doctors asked about side effects from treatments (chemo): about 85% of patients identified side effects. But only 5% of doctors did so. Same population of docs and patients. The disparity was significant. It doesn't mean the side effects are all strong by any means, but patients usually tell the nurses (chemo nurses) as well, so those nurses have the "inventories", but are not the official reporters of the side effects of treatments.