Radiation Therapy Continues, etc.

After I posted about my experience and first radiation treatment, on my next visit I told my RT’s about my son and his death. They were very understanding and asked about his machine and took me to their control room and showed me how their machine worked. This helped me A LOT and I’m doing OK with my radiation treatments. Also, my RT and assistant are women and so that helps,too.
Someone suggested I should get a prescription for Xanax. I don't think so. I have to drive myself to treatments so I’m not sure taking Xanax before I leave would be a good idea. Once I arrive, I check in and immediately go change into a gown and go sit in the waiting room. I never have to wait more than 5 minutes so far before one of my RT’s to come for me.
One strange thing is that my left arm began to hurt immediately after my first actual radiation. I have to lay with it positioned back over my head with my head turned to the right. The table is narrow, so my arm is mostly over the edge with gravity working against it. After my radiation, I’m not able to lift my left arm out of this position by itself and literally have to reach my right arm over to move my left arm. Once I’m up I can move my left arm but there is some residual pain near my armpit. I’m going to speak with my Radiologist on Thursday about this.
After rad camp, yesterday, I had a follow up Oncology appointment. My Oncologist had her baby prematurely so I met with her Nurse Practioner. I didn’t get to see my Oncologist for my last chemo either because it was on 12/27 and she was off for the Holidays. My vist with the NP went something like this:
Me: “I don’t think I’m over chemo yet.”
NP: “You’re joking, right?”
Me: “No”
NP: “listen, I’ve been meeting with patients all day who are 6 to 8 months out of chemo and they are still complaining about symptoms. Of course you’re not over chemo and on top of that you’re now getting Radiation. You still have fatigue from chemo and now as your body is tring to recover from that, Radiation is going to give you more fatigue.”

I like her. She went over my bloodwork. I’m still anemic but otherwise recovering. I told her about my arm and also how I still have bone pain and it’s always in my left leg. She said that could be a number of things but scheduled me for an ultrasound on my leg today just in case I have a blood clot.
I just realized as I’m writing this that even though I had to change into a gown, she didn’t examine me. I wonder if that was an oversight on her part as she was very late for my appointment and I had to remind her about my prescriptions. I finally got one for Ambien - yeah!
On Friday, I have a follow up appointment with the Endocrinologist about my thyroid. I have my fingers crossed that there are no changes.
Does anyone know how long it took them after chemo for their taste buds to return to normal? Everything still tastes bad to me. At least, I lost some pounds because of them ;-)

Radiation Therapy

I had my fist (of 33) Radiation treatments yesterday. I had 3 visits to Radiation last week to have my “pillow” made and 3 tattoos and a visit from my Radiology Oncologist who informed me that she would like to do treatments to my Nodes in addition to a full breast Radiation. Basically that means I get Radiation to near my collar bone, too. She told me there was some debate over Radiation to Nodes and it’s success but that because my cancer had spread which surprised them given the smallish size of my tumor, she wanted me to get it. She also said there was a slight risk that my left arm might swell. The way it works at Stanford, is that I’m assigned to one of their 6 machines used for breast cancer radiation so I always go to the same machine and every Thursday I meet with my Radiology Oncologist and/or her assistant.

After I met with her, I met with an RN to discuss skin treatment. Before she came, I was given a “stress” questionnaire basically asking questions about how I was feeling and if I was depressed, sad, or stressed about a number of topics like family, finances, treatments, etc. I marked “sad”. My questionnaire was taken by a medical asst. who said she would put it on the door of the exam room I was in. When the nurse finally came in, and asked how I was feeling (silly me assumed she had looked at the questionnaire) and I told her that I marked “sad” because I hadn’t realized how difficult lying under the radiation machines was for me because my son was an RT and operated a similar machine which rotated around you and he died 3 years ago. The truth is that I find it difficult to breath “normally” while on the machines because he always comes to my mind and I’m trying so hard not to cry making my breathing normally very difficult. She clearly was not prepaired for this and said,”well, can’t you look at this as a positive thing”? An invisible wall came up between us and every thing she said to me after this was sounded like “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah”
So, I’ve pretty much decided to just deal with this as best I can, which is what I’ve been doing all along, anyway. I did look at the handout the nurse gave me and I bought 100% aloe Vera and cetaphil cream along with unscented soap (Dove - which I think kind of stinks) and Tom’s natural deodorant without aluminum which was also recommended. The nurse also said no more hot baths, but I don’t think so.
Radiation #1 went OK. I thought of my son, shed a tear and willed myself to breath normally as best I could. In a couple of hours I leave for Radiation #2.