Radiation for me hasn't been so bad, bad meaning, I've been through worse, or perhaps my mind has gotten used to pain, used to the flows of this entire experience. I mean if you think about it, I'm laying down in a machine in a concrete vault and having radiation beamed through my body... yeah that sounds really scary, but what does freaking out get me, nowhere. That's a big cancer lesson that I have learned, all this freaking out, losing your shit, it doesn't get you anywhere. In fact the mindful meditation classes I've been attending at the Sibley Hospital has gone a tremendous way. Now when I lay down for Radiation I focus on my breathing, letting thoughts come in, pass by and back to my breathing focusing on myself and the moment at hand. Below is a picture of what it looks like on the other side of the concrete wall, yes, I'm getting radiation at the moment, my wife snapped this picture.
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| on the other side of the concrete wall |
I last wrote about 9 days into Radiation, and while I'm writing this blog article post my final treatment I wanted to give a recap on my last couple of weeks in Radiation. There is certainly a allot of appointments for a caner patient, this is what my May and June looked like, and I even celebrated my 42nd birthday in radiation. My time slot was at 7.40am which was great from a cream application perspective, meaning the doctors do not want any cream on your body up to 4 hours before beam so I could apply cream at night and I was good to go by morning. About 30 minutes post Radiation, I would change back into my work clothes and drive into work (2nd rush hour) and spend about 4 hours at work. I was religious in only working 4 hours, then I would go home and sleep. I placed a checkmark next to every treatment completed in my notebook.
My skin affected area matched the same 3D model pathway the doctors mapped out before I started treatment, so I had an exact area to apply cream even before the skin started changing color. There were certain days that I could feel the "beam" going into my body, followed by heat but most of the time I felt nothing, but if you looked at my skin, you might think otherwise. The pain on the skin really only lasted the lasted starting in June till July 2. I kept being diligent on my left side, applying cream every 4 hours, attending physical therapy and getting rest. The skin sequence below from left to right follows my skin from radiation 1 through 30. The skin turns a deep red over time in my left chest wall, under my arm and some in my back (not pictured). I used Calendula Cream, went through 1 tube every 2-3 days.
For the last 5 days of radiation treatment, I ditched the ABC breathing technique of holding my breath and they did something called "boost" which is a highly focused beam spread around the scar area. To do this, they created a lead mold of this shape and marked a green outline on my skin. So in addition to having inflamed skin, I also had blue stickers and a green outline that I needed to make sure didn't wash off - showers were a challenge. Oh and the machine was lowered to a few inches away from me. Below is a picture of me in the Elekta Infinity machine, with the lead mold they created to match my body. They use lasers in the room to align with the tattoos on my body to make sure they aim the beams in the exact same location every time.
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| lead mold, looking up |
During chemotherapy I wrote about the bond that you form with your nursing staff, same goes with your radiation team. There were usually 2-3 people every time I went into for beams, John, Anita and Emily were there for 98% of my treatments. John was great, we mostly talked about the Nationals baseball which just helped to relax the atmosphere. Emily was from Canada so we spoke about things to visit in the DC region. Now I really liked to listen to my EDM music and well Anita loved that music too, she said it was her workout music. Towards the end of treatment I didn't even have to request certain EDM DJs, Anita had pre-mixed playlist already to go for my listening. I mean I felt like I had a really positive experience given I have Cancer.
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| John and Anita getting me set up |
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