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.