zombie

When I had surgery on 8/1, I came home w/ a pain block, but after it wore off, I took exactly one pain pill, of the 30 of so prescribed.  This weekend, however, I've taken several.  Odd how the pain of the radiation side effects is substantially worse than a tumor extraction & skin graft.  My arm is so swollen that it feels best when I rest it on my head!  (i.e., elevated.)  But mostly it's just shocking to me that something as localized as the radiation on my arm (7 cm laterally from the excised tumor -- so from a inch or two above my wrist, to just above my elbow) can hurt so much.  The need to be distracted is every bit as extreme as the pain.  And, as predicted, my arm looks -- and feels -- a hell of a lot worse since the "treatment" stopped on 10/22.  I'm pulling for the techs to be correct insofar as they said it would probably only get worse for 5-7 days (and I'm advocating 5), before it started to get better.  Sadly, I'm really too distracted to be able to post anything else. ...