Day 267 | Radiation & Back to Sick-ish

Busy Living

Sorry that I’ve been not blogging. I’ve been busy living.

Since about three weeks after the end of chemo, I have felt moderately normal. Though my WBC counts weren’t really rebounding, my RBC was almost normal. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel awful. I could grocery shop without needing a rest. I still needed to avoid germs, but I could go in public without fear of immediate illness. I started to imagine what a life could be like post-cancer.

I returned to work at the end of July. It felt nice to have familiar parts of my brain click. My husband and I celebrated his birthday (early) and my aunt’s birthday (on time) in Vegas over 08.11. We’ve been taking care of Georgie, who for the most part, is a dream baby. He’s almost 17 pounds at 3.5 months (a far cry from his little preemie birthweight). Until last week, he was sleeping through the night. I’ve been working out. 

I’ve been …. just … living.

Radiation Overview

I started radiation on August 7^th. Every.morning.for 33 business days*, I get radiated. My treatment plan "one of the hardest" they have ever constructed because of my “interesting” rib anatomy (basically going in a bit more than most people’s ribs) and “perky” breasts (no joke, highfive to my husband?). As a result, they have me doing a technique deep breath hold, where I have to hold my breath as long as possible to be radiated. They are also doing IMRT, which is … “Intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) is an advanced mode of high-precision radiotherapy that uses computer-controlled linear accelerators to deliver precise radiation doses to a malignant tumor or specific areas within the tumor.”

IMRT is typically done when there is high levels of lymph involvement and usually means that the tumor’d breast is removed. (Mine is intact because of tumor location and size).

Daily Routine

Typical radiation appointments are 15 minutes. Due to the complex nature of IMRT + Deep Breath hold…. Each of my appointments was slated for an hour.

Strangely, I am an excellent breath holder. It’s a really weird thing to be good at, but the radiation nurses are consistently impressed, telling me I am the best breather they’ve ever had. Because of my A+ breathing, my appointments are usually 35 minutes.

The radiation dose to my heart is 350. Maximum is 500.

They are radiating pretty high – up my neck. I can feel the pain in my throat starting to creep up because of the radiation effect to my esophagus.

I am 45.45% finished (which I’ve rounded up to 46% mentally). Secondary effects (skin changes, sore throats, etc.) peak one week after the end of treatment. For me, that will be the last week of September.

I was really enjoying not feeling sick, it’s such a bummer that I can feel all the radiation effects settling in now – local pain, throat pain, tiredness (though that may have been my 4AM wakeup calls from my hungry baby).  

You can see the redness here:

Till next time, that's what's new.

*What is super weird about radiation is that it’s important enough to require daily treatment. What’s weird is that it’s only on business days.