Everyone who told me that radiation would be a "walk in the park compared to chemo" owes me a candy bar (or something equally yummy).  I am not having an easy time with radation- its crappiness began earlier this week.
The swallowing pain got worse all week and would be particularly painful right after treatment.  I began getting a rash on Monday- my docs thought it was an allergic reaction, so they gave me zyertec (allergy medicine).  Not only has it not gone away,  but it is spreading.  But the worst of the worst came on Friday. 
I was feeling pretty aweful after my radiation on Friday, but Curtis was visiting so I was trying my best to play it off like I was doing ok.  After we had lunch I was totally drained so I decided to take a nap while he watched TV.  Once I woke from my nap I noticed it was kind of painful to take a deep breath.  Thinking it had something to do with my sore esophagus, I ignored it.  Long story short, by 8PM I thought my chest was going to explode.  Even taking a substancial breath made my chest ache and moving (especial going from sitting up to laying down) sent shooting pains through my chest.  Meanwhile I am searching the internet and the only thing I can find is that chest pain is an "uncommon side effect of radiation."  I'm on the verge of going to the ER, but decide to try to call my radiation oncologist first.  I call his nighttime number and get the methodist hospital switchboard.  They page him.  He doens't call.  I try to call the office and the message says to call the switchboard and ask to page the radiation oncologist on-call for the night.  That guy calls back and I tell him how I am feeling.  He says that it sounds like the lining of my lungs has swollen due to the radiation and is rubbing on my ribcage and that is why it hurts to take a deep breath.  He says to take some asprin (anti-inflammatory) and if it gets to where I'm short of breath I should go to the ER.
So I get and bed and cry from pain for about 30 minutes until I fall asleep.  The next day it still hurts, but not as badly.  Today it is even better, but still uncomfortable to take a deep breath. 
I still have 8 radiations left, but I can't deal with that kind of pain for the next week and a half.  At least this time I got a 2 day break afterwards, but if it happens on Monday I wont.  I am going to talk to my doctor on Monday; I saw a lot of forum posts where people said they had a bad response to radiation so their doctor ended it early or they didn't get any at all.  I dont WANT to end it early because I don't want the cancer to come back, but I really don't want to have lung damage as a result of this.  I also want this rash to go away...