Radiation Update - Treatment #25

Another treatment done, eight more to go. Down to the single digits now. Thank goodness. I'm pretty badly burnt now. I had my weekly doctor's visit today. Dr. O. switched me from the Biafine (I was on my second tube already!) to "Radia-Guard." It has some lidocane in it to take away some of the pain. The worst is when I get warm, the burn flares up or when my seat belt rubs it. Ugh. I'm starting to get tiny blisters on my most sensitive skin. Just my shirt touching that hurts!

They did say my blood pressure was a little low this morning 80/64 but other than that I was alright. On Friday I will go from my regular treatments (the whole area) to a "boost" treatment. The booster treatment is targeted to the area specific to where the tumor was. I get 5 booster treatments. The regular treatments involve photons which travel through me and would affect others in the room. The boost treatments involve electrons which stop when they hit me and are slightly stronger. Dr. O. explained this to me this morning. I'm sure I still don't understand it all but that's a start.

My work situation has gotten better. The City Manager called me last Monday afternoon and they are going to switch me to COBRA to allow me to work less hours and keep my insurance. YAY!!! Some nights I get home and I'm so exhausted I can't even fix a salad for dinner. I'm back to my college days of cereal for dinner cause it's the easiest thing I can do.

I met with the Bosom Buddies yesterday for us to catch up and get our packets for the Susan G. Komen for Life in April. If you haven't signed up, do it! Or better yet, sponsor me! :)  http://www.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/General?px=9273825&pg=personal&fr_id=2103

The Bosom Buddies (Jodi, Christine, Me, Kim, and Summer): 

Radiation - Treatment #20

I just X-ed out today in my day planner. I know today isn't over yet but I can say I've finished another treatment. That makes 20 done. And 13 more to go. Whew. Right now that still feels like a mountain to climb. Looking back over the past 10 months, this should be the easy part, right? That's why I'm X-ing off the days in the planner. There is finally an end in sight. I guess there comes a time you just grow weary of all the doctor visits. But I'm hanging in there.

My skin has started to burn. It stays red now and is tender and sore. Dr. O saw me this morning and she said it looks "great!" which was a bit surprising. I got the Biafine cream on Thursday and have been putting it on several times a day then using vitamin E at nights. My skin just started itching today, around the edges of the burn. I wish we could stop now. It looks like a sunburn from a day at the beach. Only I have to go back for 13 more doses of radiation. I'm worried about how much worse the burn will get.

I've been working between 35-38 hours the past few weeks. It really makes for some long days by the time I drive to Pulaski then back to Galax, then don't get any breaks all day. It's exhausting. I'm falling asleep on the couch at 8pm these days. I guess the fatigue has kicked in. I hope the next few days pass quickly.

Depression

That's a word you don't like to hear. Depression. People don't admit to feeling it, and if they do others will cringe or look away. Or they'll say, "it can't be that bad!" and try to perk you up. As you can tell from my recent posts, the past few weeks have been rough. Things have gotten some better but I'm still a bit of an emotional train wreck.

I think I've hit bottom the past couple of weeks. On Thursday some things happened at work that just were too much for me to handle. I finally really realized that I needed help that night when I literally just curled up in my chair at home and alternated crying then staring at the wall. For a long time. Mom came and stayed with me most of the weekend. It helped a lot to not be alone.

I met with Dr. O on Monday and talked to her about it. She said it sounded like a mild anti-depressant would help and to talk to one of my regular doctors. I put in a call to Dr. G after I got out since he had mentioned it to me before, if I ever started feeling hopeless. Well, I feel like I passed hopeless a long time ago, so it was definitely time to call.

I will give this a try and see how it does. I do hope it can help. I know Dad had said, that if there was ever a time that I was going to feel depressed, this was it. I understand that but I do need to be able to function also. So say a prayer, keep your fingers crossed, and I'll let you know how it goes!

Well...

I don't know where to start. Since the last load of updates, my family and I escaped to Pigeon Forge for Presidents day weekend. I'm so thankful we did. We had a wonderful mini-vacation. I did not have an abundance of energy but we still managed to get in some shopping and plenty of eating. The Thursday before we left, my grandmother had been in the rehab center recovering from pneumonia. They said she would be able to come home in a little over a week, the following Saturday. We were so relieved, it was a great trip. Dad got the call on Sunday that she had gotten sick again. On Monday morning we got the call to hurry home, that Grandma was dying.

Monday was probably one of the hardest days. That was a long quiet drive back, straight to Radford Hospital. I stayed for several hours, holding Grandma's hand. It was so hard, it brought back so many memories of last year when we were there right before Granny passed. Mom took me back to my place later that evening. Because of my freaking insurance I was afraid to miss too much work and I had to start radiation at 9am the next morning. Dad spent the night at the hospital with Grandma. I was so proud of him, most of his family hadn't been there for her like they should have.

Monday, when we got back to my house there was a letter in the mail saying that the mammogram that I had done the previous week had found something, probably a tumor, and probably benign. There were just too many "probably"s in that sentence for me. And after the day I had, I had a bit of a meltdown. I was hoping to see the doctor the next day and get some answers but when I went for my treatment I found out she was off that week. The nurse said it was just a shadow from my surgery and that causes the breast to look different on any mammogram or scan. I still wanted to hear this from the doctor.

My treatments are going well. The machine is so huge and intimidating, I know I was shaking during the treatment. I can lay pretty still while they line up my marks with the lasers but then when the technicians leave the room and the two-foot thick metal door slides shut... then this huge machine arm starts buzzing around me! I either shake or my heart is pounding to where I'm pretty sure they can see the sheet move on the cameras. But I've been putting the aloe on like they've said, my skin looks okay so far. So 5 treatments down and 28 to go!

My dear grandmother passed away on Thursday morning. Mom showed up at my door at 8am and I knew. I had started to drive home the night before but the whole week I had been so exhausted I had gone to bed around 9:00 every night. I don't know if it was the treatments or stress. I regret that I didn't go home that night. I just felt like there was only so much a person could take and I had reached my limit. Thankfully, Dad was with her every night. And Mom and Dad were both there when she passed that morning. The people that came to her services and outpouring of love that was shown for her has been amazing. She was an incredible lady. I don't know what we'll do without her, she held the family together. 

As of today, I got to FINALLY see Dr. O. and she gave me a copy of her official report. In which it states there is no indication of any reoccurance of cancer! Praise the Lord! She also gave me her cell phone number in case any question like this ever arises in the future. We also got word from the city manager that they will work with me on the insurance situation. As long as I get between 30-39 hours in per week. Whew. Maybe I can start to breathe again. Soon.

Lots of Updates

Well a LOT has happened in the past week that I need to fill in here. First off, last week I came down with the sinus cold/flu/crud that has been going around. I woke up Sunday morning with awful sinus pain and by that night there was no doubt that I was sick. I missed work almost all week except for a few hours on Thursday for which I was told I looked as bad as I felt and I then went back home to the couch.

On Tuesday (still sick) I went for the mammogram that Dr. O had requested before starting radiation. They did a regular mammogram and a micro-mammogram, which was really just another form of torture. If this was used on men during war time, interrogations would go a lot quicker. They said everything looked good so I moved on to the next appointment.

I had my one-month check up with Dr. G that afternoon. One month! He said it was just a cold virus and to use some nasal spray and sudafed. boo. My great news of my hair coming back was shot down with... "oh that's just your baby fuzz, it'll fall out and the real hair will grow in." Really not what I wanted to hear. At least it's looking more like hair now. Overall the appointment went well. The nurse had some trouble getting blood back from my port, she had to lay me back and try a few times, but it finally worked. My bloodwork was good.

About a half an hour later I started feeling sick. I had pain down my legs and my back. I broke out in a cold sweat and was afraid I would be sick or pass out. I was on the 460 bypass so I got off in town and called mom to meet me. She took me home, by that time I was shaking all over with chills. That lasted a couple hours. I took a pain pill and went to bed. The next day I talked to the doctor and he was afraid that there was bacteria in my port so he ordered a "port study" to be done at the hospital on Friday.

Thursday, I did try to work a while. After I went in to work I was informed that my six months of working reduced hours and paying for my insurance would be up in mid-March. At that time I have to either return to work full time or quit to keep receiving insurance. I'll still be taking radiation treatments until the first week of April so I have yet to figure out how to resolve this.

Friday, I went to receive my final tattoos! They had to match up the CT scans and mammograms to do the final markings. They took me into the room with the radiation machine. It was HUGE. I mean... intimidating. Laying on this table while this huge machine buzzes around you, rotating with lasers... it's unreal. And I've had MRIs and things before. Maybe it's the fact that I know this one will be shooting radiation into me. They had to use the laser beams to mark me. So that went quick and relatively painless.

Then I went to the Radford Hospital for the "port study." They were supposed to do bloodwork first to determine if there was any bacteria in the port. Two nurses tried accessing the port THREE times. They could inject the saline just fine but they couldn't get any blood back. By the third time I was so sore I was holding my breath and Lord knows what faces I was making! They left the port accessed the third time and sent me to radiology for the study. The doctor there injected a dye and watched it go in. He didn't see a problem with it going in, but he still couldn't get blood back. Obviously there is a problem even if it is just a clot or little something blocking it. That was all they could do so they sent me home.

 Sorry for the super-long post but there was a lot going on!

Starting radiation

I met with the radiation oncologist yesterday. I thought it would be a quick consult, getting set up with my schedule and that sort of thing. Well. After getting there at 8:30, we didn't even get to see Dr. O. until after 10:00. Dr. O. was great, she went over my questions and the treatment plan. It will be 28 regular treatments and 5 booster treatments, so 33 total rounds of radiation. Going daily, M-F for each treatment. The side effects will range from fatigue to sunburn to lung scarring.

After meeting with the doctor, she wanted to go ahead and have my CT scan done right away! They did it while I was there. Along with the baseline or first "tattoos" which are more like dots just to line the laser or radiation beams up with when they start treatments. The tattoos weren't as bad as I thought, just little needle pricks. Really, after all this my pain tolerance has gone to a whole other level! I'll have another mammogram next week and they can compare those scans to each other. Then I go back there on Friday and they will do the final tattoos outlining the area that will receive treatments.

I'll start radiation on Tuesday, February 22 and that will run in into April. I'll meet with Dr. O. once a week just to make sure everything is going alright. I'm really not looking forward to the interstate drive EVERY day. I got the earliest appointment they had available which was 9am. That will put me in a rush on storytime days but that's the best I can do. I just have to look forward to getting through it and being done, like I did with the chemo. And not focus on the negatives like the drive, sunburn, or continued fatigue. Just think... in a couple of months, it will be finished.

Exciting new development!

I have been holding off on posting this because I wanted to see how it would go. And I also wanted to show my friends in person... But my hair is coming back!!! It's been growing in for about a month now. It's so soft and fine. Really, more like fuzz for a while, it's just now starting to actually look like I have some hair. I'm SO EXCITED!

It actually started showing some "fuzz" before my final treatment. But I was afraid it would fall out again or stall. Some has fallen out in the past few days. I don't know if it is the chemo drugs or stress doing it but there is NO way I'm shaving what little fuzz I have. It'll just thin out if it does fall out. It's grown quite a bit in just a month. I've taken pictures once a week to post, and it's hard to see in the pics but hopefully over time we can see the difference! :)

Week 1: January 14, 2011

Week 2: January 21, 2011

Week 3: January 28, 2011

Week 4: February 5, 2011

I'll try to continue my "hair journal" for myself and anyone else who is interested. After going for three months completely bald it's nice to have at least the promise of hair. :) I have now gone to the mall and Target without a hat/scarf/wig. That was interesting. Most people didn't blink an eye. A few kids and younger guys did stare... but it was fine. Fun, actually. I probably wouldn't do it alone or if I hadn't felt like I was dressed feminine but it was fun to try for a change.

Well, I go this afternoon for my 6-month checkup with the surgeon. I cannot believe it has been six months. In a way it feels like a lifetime... but in another it feels like I've just turned around and all this has been a dream! Hopefully I'll get a good report.