The Home Stretch

Only THREE more of the 33 radiation treatments left to go!

I know, I fell off the blog map again. Somehow the monotony of the appointments (everyday except weekends since Sept. 8th) just didn't motivate me to report anything. I've also had a lot of personal ups and downs. Lisa came to so many of my appointments and we were absolutely obsessed with the jigsaw puzzles that are out in the waiting area for everyone to work on. And frankly I suspect this blog would have just been full of puzzle-updates anyway.

The treatments are really manageable. I've gotten very tired over the last couple of weeks, and had the flu for about 10-days. That was fun. I'm sure I got it because I'm so worn down but it happened to perfectly occur just as my skin was getting unbearably burnt and crispy. The aloe vera they give you to apply 2x a day just wasn't cutting it anymore. Bras — even the wireless ones I've been wearing the whole time — were outright too painful. My nipple was like a burnt cookie. My armpit chaffing. So although the flu was no joyride, at least I got to miss four appointments! (They were tacked on to the end of the schedule... no getting totally out of them...) So my skin got to heal for a minute, and the Aquaphor and Hydrocortisone helped turn everything back around to just a bad "sunburn" again.

I go in at 8am and it is great to get it over with in the morning. I have some buddies that I see every day who have their appointments before or after me. I am constantly thankful for this crazy bullet I dodged. There are so many stories (of all kinds of cancers) I have heard that make me:

• feel like I am the luckiest person in the world because I didn't have to do chemo
• feel guilty that I didn't have to do chemo -- but happy nonetheless
• feel like a whiner at times for complaining about what a hassle this has been when I didn't have to do chemo and I also have a curable cancer

I know, I know, I don't belittle this journey at all, but it is so humbling when you see other people's tremendous trials and grace.

So the routine is that before hitting the waiting room, you go straight to a dressing room and put on a gown. I have found the older the gown the better. It's less stiff, ties better and therefore stays on better. Leave pants and shoes on. Do puzzles while you wait for your turn. They call your name and you say Hi to whichever 2 or 3 techs are on that day. My favs by far are Krissy, Tracy and Jude. Pull down the top of the robe, lying down on the movable table, putting arms overhead and grabbing handles. Don't move them anymore. They snap a giant rubber band around your shoes so your legs don't go anywhere. Here I am before they move the table under the machine.


Then they turn down the lights and start saying all of these numbers to each other like "94.7." "107." "96." I hear the same ones everyday as they line everything up. They project the numbers onto you. You can see them here on my chest. They also stand on both sides of you saying these numbers while making little tugs on the gown you're sort of riding on to make minute adjustments making sure you are lining up in the exact spot every treatment. I feel like a sack of sugar being subtly moved.


Then they line up the lasers to my four tiny pinprick tattoos. They come from the ceiling and the wall. At this point I start getting bored and wondering what today's song the boombox is playing. Today was The BeeGee's "Jive Talkin'." Yesterday was Billy Joel singing "...Captain Jack will get you high tonight..." The Eagles Greatest Hits was on last week. Out in the waiting area you won't hear any classic rock. It's more mood music like Enya and Louis Armstong's "What a Wonderful World." Anyway, here are the red crosshair lasers. Under that crisscross is one of my teeny tattoos. You can also see I'm getting red around my armpit.

The last seven sessions are "The Boost." Which means the machine gets superduper crazy close now — an inch or so away — and blasts just the small area where the tumor was — versus targeting most of the breast which it's been like up to now. They tape this heavy rubbery-plastic stuff called bolus over my boob and that almost always hurts my nipple but who cares because it only has to happen three more times! You can see it on my lap "warming up" which it really never does. Ice cold bolus on a sore teet. Tons o' fun!

Lisa could only stay this long to take pictures before they kicked her out so that's why they end here.

So one day I asked about feeling the radiation going through my arms. Jude very nicely let me know that is a complete hallucination, but a common one. He said some people who are radiated in their frontal lobes for brain tumors smell something and they all describe the exact same imaginary smell. (DO NOT quote me on this but I swear he said it was the smell of burning. I think I'm making this up. I would not make a good scientist.)

Oh, but wait! Here's another photo. Too much? Probably. Oh well. Modesty has never been my strong point. Anyway, I wanted to show the clean shape of red from radiation. I wish I 'd taken a pic of it crispy, it was really strange looking. It hurts from time to time but mostly it's itchy and annoying. Again, like a bad sunburn. My Radiation Oncologist says that even after I'm done with the last session it could get worse, but after about 10 days it turns around and starts to get all better, being mostly gone in a month. And the radiation should have helped the scar disappear a little too! Speaking of, that is the scar in the middle of the oval. Looks great, right? The purple oval is from when they were doing the new alignments for The Boost. It's drawn on with a paint pens. The "X" is so that they can line me up super quick and make the appointments faster. And it has a plastic sticker over it so that it won't wash off before the last treatment.


Ok, I'm really tired and need to get to bed. And I am really, really, really looking forward to this whole thing being over soon.