Yesterday (September 29, 2025) marked one week since I came home from the hospital following my ostomy reversal surgery.

2025 has been a grueling year in my cancer journey: needle biopsy, diagnosis, chemotherapy, a chemo-damaged colon requiring a colostomy, more chemo, ongoing HER2 therapeutics every three weeks, a nuclear medicine isotope injection, and finally a double mastectomy. Out of everything I’ve endured, the ostomy reversal was the most acutely painful, three times worse than anything else.

Going into surgery, everything seemed routine. The anesthesiologist mentioned they’d do an abdominal nerve block, hint #1 that they knew this would be painful. The surgery was successful, but as I woke from anesthesia, we discovered the nerve block hadn’t worked. My recovery nurse said he only sees them work 50% of the time. My pain level was an instantaneous 9 out of 10, the worst pain of my life. They kept administering fentanyl, but nothing touched it.

They moved me to my room on the 7th floor at UT Southwestern Hospital. Despite the staff’s best efforts within the doctor’s orders, very little helped. I managed only two hours of broken sleep that first night, purely from exhaustion. After the doctor’s visit the next day, and a severe bout of gas pain, they increased my pain medication. Finally, my pain dropped to a 5 or 6, and I could sleep.

My dad witnessed much of this ordeal. On the way home, I told him I wished he hadn’t seen me in that much pain. Just thinking about watching Beau or Norah suffer like that, unable to help, brings me to tears.

While my mastectomy required only a 23-hour hospital stay, the ostomy reversal kept me admitted from Thursday through Monday. I forced myself to walk as much as possible, even waking at 2 AM to pace the halls, sneaking past nurses napping at their desks during those grueling 12-hour night shifts.

One remarkable aspect was how the wounds healed. Of my six abdominal incisions, the ostomy site itself is considered a “dirty wound.” To let my body expel bacteria naturally, they left it completely open to heal by secondary intention (from the inside out). It was packed with approximately four feet of narrow gauze, which was removed along with a surgical drain when I was discharged. After the packing came out, I could shine a light inside the hole and see my abdominal muscles.

Yesterday also marked the start of my next treatment phase: 28 consecutive weekdays of high-powered radiation to my chest.

Each morning, I arrive at the facility and lie on a custom vacuum-packed bean bag that conforms to my body. Technicians align tattoos on my chest with lasers, then a giant machine head swings around, taking images to ensure proper alignment. Once positioned, it delivers a localized dose of 1.8 Gray (180 Rad) to my right chest while I hold my breath to better protect my heart and lungs. The machine operates on four axes with tiny interconnected metal fingers that move like waves, shaping the radiation beam to target cancer areas while avoiding healthy tissue.

I was curious what 1.8 Gray means in real-world terms:

– Natural background radiation is about 0.0024 Gray per year so one treatment is 750 times higher.

– A chest X-ray is about 0.0001 Gray where one treatment equals 18,000 chest X-rays. After 28 treatments, I’ll have received the equivalent of over 500,000 chest X-rays.

– A cross-country flight exposes you to about 0.00004 Gray. By treatment’s end, I’ll have absorbed radiation equivalent to 1.26 million flights. I wish I had those airline miles.

For context, radiation sickness begins around 1-2 Gray of whole-body exposure. Chernobyl firefighters received 5-20 Gray of whole-body exposure; a lethal dose is 4-5 Gray without treatment. The crucial difference is that my doses are localized and spread out over time, allowing my healthy cells to regenerate every 24 hours, especially over weekend breaks. This regeneration process, combined with six healing abdominal incisions and a recovering colon, is where the fatigue comes from.

Specific prayer requests:

1. We have big events nearly every weekend of October. I really need to feel rested for them and right now I feel anything but rested.
2. The radiation damages my skin faster than it can heal which can cause burns and blisters.
3. I have a lot of anxiety about how the radiation could be causing damage to my heart and lungs. Please pray for protection over my organs. 

If you’re curious about these remarkable machines, here’s a short video on one similar to mine: https://youtu.be/rzNzNBqay5k?si=wnw1tG5rEUqZ-1by