Radiation
Twenty-five sessions of radiation therapy basically translates into five weeks of treatment, one every day (with weekends off for good behaviour). It had to coincide with two sessions of chemo, which was every two weeks.
The ‘planning session’ was memorable… There ain’t no room for modesty when you have a tumour in your chest. It’s almost quite insulting having rooms full of people staring intently at your chest, and not a single person says ‘Way hey…’ Nonetheless, this is how it is… Planning lasted several hours, during which I had to lie with my head on a ‘pillow’ (made of plastic) – so my head would always be in the same position, with my arms above my head (hands in another plastic vice). This position is quite uncomfortable after a couple of minutes. After two hours? All your muscles burn.
But, to take my mind off my screaming muscles, lots of people drew lots of pretty lines in thick black felt pen all over my chest. Then they would leave and go look at scans and x-rays, have a bit of a chat, plot some more points, then come back and draw another line or two. Finally, at the end of it all, I got three tattoos… tiny little dots down my cleavage. I did ask for a dragon, but he said he was insufficiently trained…
They then took a photo of my boobs with all their artwork (worth millions one day, I’m sure) and then a pretty face shot so they know who’s boobs go with who, and that was planning.
Radiation itself never lasted long… usually only about fifteen minutes. Up to an hour in the waiting room (nothing new there), then I would be called in, take my shirt off, lie topless in the vice with my arms up, then the radiation people would draw lines from the tattoos. Once I was perfectly lined up, they would hit a big siren, leave the room, closing the big heavy lead lined doors behind them, and go and oversee the proceedings from another (safer) room.
The radiation machine sort of rotated around me, making a whirring noise. It doesn’t hurt, you can’t see anything, and it was all fairly uneventful. The knowledge that you are being blasted with radiation is pretty scary though.
By the end of the month I had fairly major sunburn to the treated areas, but that was the only real side effect… so far. I was extraordinarily tired, and sleeping every afternoon, but nothing dramatically different from chemo.
During radiation, Mama went home to spend some time with Dave. Grandma and Grandpa came down to look after me, and cook lots of nice food. It was really good to have them there.
Since they are big fans of their food (yes, it is genetic), they left at just the right time… they agree that they would have struggled with what followed.
Unfortunately, when you radiate to the chest, you cannot ONLY radiate the tumour and miss all the other bits. This means, that if I make it to 70 or 80, I will probably die of heart disease. So be it. I can live with this.
Radiation keeps working even after you stop blasting every day. About a week after I finished treatment, I started getting really bad heartburn, which just kept getting worse until I could no longer swallow anything without immense pain.
The lining of my oesophogus had completely burned off. This is known as oesophogitis, and it was the first time I was really incapacitated by my poxy cancer. The inability to eat was completely foreign to me.
Amy came to stay with me for a week and we had a completely mad time. We went off to nightclubs when we shouldn't, and it was about this time that we also started the Cabbage Soup Diet. Hey, I wasn't eating ANYTHING, so it might as well be cabbage soup that I'm not eating. Unfortunately, we burned the soup and the entire house smelt like cabbage for a week. Needless to say, the diet lasted about 24 hours - disgusting stuff.
Amy and I also spent the week touring tattoo parlours and looking for a tattoo artist who could design a tattoo that we liked. We found one, got a great design and in we went... And yes, it does hurt, but I figured I was getting needles stuck into me willy nilly anyway, so what was a couple more...
During this time, Amy turned 21. On the morning of her birthday she started crying, saying she didn't want to lose me. This was the first time it had really hit me how hard it would be for everyone left behind if I died. I knew that it was a possibility and although I didn't particularly want to die (okay, REALLY didn't want to die), I was still quite calm about it. I realised that day that it would really devastate my loved ones, and I became more determined not to die.
After radiation had finished but before the surgery was scheduled, Mama and I spent a week in Nimbin. I loved Nimbin. The northen NSW hinterlands are really beautiful, and it was a great place to spend a week. Nimbin is a very small place, and after a couple of days the locals got used to seeing us around and would say hello (and no longer tried to sell us pot). So we had a wonderful week wandering around the town and driving around the area.
The ‘planning session’ was memorable… There ain’t no room for modesty when you have a tumour in your chest. It’s almost quite insulting having rooms full of people staring intently at your chest, and not a single person says ‘Way hey…’ Nonetheless, this is how it is… Planning lasted several hours, during which I had to lie with my head on a ‘pillow’ (made of plastic) – so my head would always be in the same position, with my arms above my head (hands in another plastic vice). This position is quite uncomfortable after a couple of minutes. After two hours? All your muscles burn.
But, to take my mind off my screaming muscles, lots of people drew lots of pretty lines in thick black felt pen all over my chest. Then they would leave and go look at scans and x-rays, have a bit of a chat, plot some more points, then come back and draw another line or two. Finally, at the end of it all, I got three tattoos… tiny little dots down my cleavage. I did ask for a dragon, but he said he was insufficiently trained…
They then took a photo of my boobs with all their artwork (worth millions one day, I’m sure) and then a pretty face shot so they know who’s boobs go with who, and that was planning.
Radiation itself never lasted long… usually only about fifteen minutes. Up to an hour in the waiting room (nothing new there), then I would be called in, take my shirt off, lie topless in the vice with my arms up, then the radiation people would draw lines from the tattoos. Once I was perfectly lined up, they would hit a big siren, leave the room, closing the big heavy lead lined doors behind them, and go and oversee the proceedings from another (safer) room.
The radiation machine sort of rotated around me, making a whirring noise. It doesn’t hurt, you can’t see anything, and it was all fairly uneventful. The knowledge that you are being blasted with radiation is pretty scary though.
By the end of the month I had fairly major sunburn to the treated areas, but that was the only real side effect… so far. I was extraordinarily tired, and sleeping every afternoon, but nothing dramatically different from chemo.
During radiation, Mama went home to spend some time with Dave. Grandma and Grandpa came down to look after me, and cook lots of nice food. It was really good to have them there.
Since they are big fans of their food (yes, it is genetic), they left at just the right time… they agree that they would have struggled with what followed.
Unfortunately, when you radiate to the chest, you cannot ONLY radiate the tumour and miss all the other bits. This means, that if I make it to 70 or 80, I will probably die of heart disease. So be it. I can live with this.
Radiation keeps working even after you stop blasting every day. About a week after I finished treatment, I started getting really bad heartburn, which just kept getting worse until I could no longer swallow anything without immense pain.
The lining of my oesophogus had completely burned off. This is known as oesophogitis, and it was the first time I was really incapacitated by my poxy cancer. The inability to eat was completely foreign to me.
Amy came to stay with me for a week and we had a completely mad time. We went off to nightclubs when we shouldn't, and it was about this time that we also started the Cabbage Soup Diet. Hey, I wasn't eating ANYTHING, so it might as well be cabbage soup that I'm not eating. Unfortunately, we burned the soup and the entire house smelt like cabbage for a week. Needless to say, the diet lasted about 24 hours - disgusting stuff.
Amy and I also spent the week touring tattoo parlours and looking for a tattoo artist who could design a tattoo that we liked. We found one, got a great design and in we went... And yes, it does hurt, but I figured I was getting needles stuck into me willy nilly anyway, so what was a couple more...
During this time, Amy turned 21. On the morning of her birthday she started crying, saying she didn't want to lose me. This was the first time it had really hit me how hard it would be for everyone left behind if I died. I knew that it was a possibility and although I didn't particularly want to die (okay, REALLY didn't want to die), I was still quite calm about it. I realised that day that it would really devastate my loved ones, and I became more determined not to die.
After radiation had finished but before the surgery was scheduled, Mama and I spent a week in Nimbin. I loved Nimbin. The northen NSW hinterlands are really beautiful, and it was a great place to spend a week. Nimbin is a very small place, and after a couple of days the locals got used to seeing us around and would say hello (and no longer tried to sell us pot). So we had a wonderful week wandering around the town and driving around the area.
posted by Jessie at 12:53 pm
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