What Brachytherapy Is Really Like: My Experience with Internal Radiation for Uterine Carcinosarcoma

An honest look at vaginal brachytherapy, cancer treatment, healing, humor,

and finding freedom in unexpected places.

☢️ Fair warning: this is a post about my vagina. ☢️

If you clutch your pearls, avert your gaze, cover your ears, or quietly back out of the room, I still love you.

But since I've chosen to live this cancer journey out loud, I feel like I'd be doing a disservice if I only shared the inspirational parts and left out the weird, awkward, uncomfortable, deeply human bits that could help someone else.

Especially because women's health has spent far too long buried under shame, silence, and what's supposedly "appropriate."

That doesn't help anybody.

So let's talk about brachytherapy for uterine carcinosarcoma.

As part of my treatment for this rare and aggressive cancer, I receive localized internal radiation (only four times total over two weeks).

While the chemotherapy is busy hunting down any rogue microscopic assholes throughout my body, the brachytherapy targets the area most likely to experience a local recurrence.

In practical terms, each session involves lidocaine, a surprisingly sizeable cylinder, a lot of lube, an R2-D2-esque robotic attachment, a physicist who looks approximately fifteen years old to me (complete with Clark Kent glasses and floppy hair), and a Geiger-counter-like device to confirm that I am not, in fact, radioactive before or after treatment. 🤖

While Bob Marley drifts through the speakers (my radiation "tradition" that began during my first cancer rodeo in 2016), I close my eyes and imagine myself floating somewhere in the Mediterranean. I focus on turquoise water instead of medical equipment. Ancient stone villages instead of radiation delivery systems. Salt air instead of sterile air.

As a hypnotist, I'm acutely aware that where attention goes, experience follows.

That doesn't mean pretending reality is different than it is. It means recognizing that even in difficult moments, we have some choice about what we focus on, what meaning we assign, and what inner resources we call upon.

And so I feel gratitude for a wonderful medical team actively working to both save my life and preserve an organ that brings joy to my life instead of ruminating on the finer points of radiation delivery to my vaginal cuff.

Brachytherapy, Beetlejuice, and the revolutionary power of one less fuck to give.

Cancer is weird.

Despite the fact that the Ten Plagues appear to have broken out across my poor chemo scalp; despite looking like a balder and even wilder version of Beetlejuice most days; despite the fact that I wander around the house with one tiddy out because it's more comfortable with the chemo port; and despite the reality that I look vaguely feral...

In my mind, I resemble Marianne in Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People, charging through chaos toward revolution and freedom.

I've never felt more in my feminine power. More connected to my body. And more liberated, not only from the absolute mayhem that had taken up residence inside me, but also from an astonishing amount of unnecessary fucks and the burden of making myself palatable for everyone else.

More aware that I belong to an ancient lineage of women who weathered plagues, wars, migrations, heartbreaks, pogroms, holocausts, reinventions, and every imaginable form of uncertainty - and somehow still found reasons to sing, dance, laugh, love, and begin again.

More grateful for the fact that this body - however stitched, irradiated, infused, poked, prodded, scanned, and occasionally ridiculous - continues to heal, adapt, and carry me forward.

One of the strangest gifts of serious illness is that it strips away illusion.

The illusion that we are in control of everything. The illusion that our worth depends on productivity. The illusion that our bodies must always look a certain way to be beautiful. The illusion that life begins later, after we finally become perfect.

What remains is often something simpler and truer: This breath. This moment. This body. This chance to love the people we love.

There also has to be humor in times like these. LOTS of it.

Which is why I had to engage in a brief-but-heroic struggle for facial control when my very kind radiation oncologist finished Thursday's treatment cheerfully and in all innocence with:

"See you next Tuesday." 💀

And friends, if there is a more perfect farewell to receive while lying on a table after someone has just finished placing and removing medical equipment in your vagina, I have yet to hear it.

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Jennifer Dolinka, M.S., is a Certified Hypnotist, trained conflict analyst, and creator of the Clear Calm Confident™ method. After years working internationally in complex organizational environments, she now supports clients around the world in navigating something even more fundamental: the inner conflicts that keep them stuck.

Jennifer helps self-aware, capable humans release anxiety and self-doubt, shift limiting beliefs, ease stress and discomfort, and reconnect with their own clarity and inner wisdom. She specializes in supporting professionals, students, and survivors who are ready to move from overwhelm to grounded confidence.

Her work blends science-informed hypnotherapy, experience-based insight, and a deep respect for the mind–body connection. Above all, Jennifer’s approach is collaborative and empowering – helping clients change patterns at the root so life can move forward with greater ease and self-trust.

Curious what your mind is capable of? Book a complimentary Discovery Session to explore what's possible.