Monday, April 25, 2011 was the fifth anniversary of my husband's death from cancer. I knew it would be a difficult day to make it through, but the next day proved to even worse.
When I rose for the day on Tuesday, I had no idea that my day would involve emergency surgery requiring stint placements in my left leg and surgery on a large clot in my right leg. My leg became numb from my hip to my toes, white in color and extremely cold. The pain that radiated from my hip to my toes was excruciating. My leg became limp and useless.
Upon arriving to the emergency, the pain was so chronic that I wanted to die, seriously. I wanted it to stop. After examination it was determined that I had artery blockage in my left leg requiring emergency surgery. I was transported to a metro hospital by ambulance.
Two stints were placed in my upper leg. A few hours later I was in emergency surgery to removed a massive blood clot in my upper right leg which was caused by the instruments to place the stints.
What had happened? Why did I developed clotting of the arteries of my legs? Late radiation side effects from eight weeks of front and back pelvic radiation for my anal cancer in 2004.
Late effects of radiation is permanent damage and may take months or years to develop and can be progressive. The thin layers of cells that lines the interior surface of blood vessels become damaged. This can cause premature arteriosclerosis, the narrowing of the medium and large arteries.
The vessel damage within the beam of radiation may cause premature vessel aging, radiation induced arteriosclerosis or radiation induced blood vessel scarring and death to the tissues. The radiation energy dose, duration and size of field are contributing factors on radiation-induced arteriosclerosis and can take from one month to over twenty years to become evident.
Talk to your oncologist and radiologist about ways to shield other organs to protect them from the radiation field. Late radiation side effects are permanent and will continue to cause health problems. There is no cure for vessel or artery damage due to radiation therapy.
I was very concerned the two weeks that followed. Since then I have had a borage of tests for my heart of which have been normal thus far. The fact is that I made a trade off. To survive my cancer my body underwent damages that I will live with for the rest of my life. Knowing the possibilities ahead of time that you may face life-long side effects at least gives you knowledge and can help you to prepare for these possibilities. I did not know this damage was a possibility. They are yet one more thing in my life that I will learn to live with.
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