Done!

As of Friday, I have finally officially finished with cancer treatments.

8 rounds of chemo,

2 boobs removed,

33 radiation treatments,

and a partridge in a pear tree.

I am tired and I'm happy it's over. Many people have asked what the next step is, so I figured I would address it here. At the bare minimum, my plastic surgeon wants to wait at least 3 months until I can have surgery to replace the tissue expanders with implants. I also still need to have the expanders filled a few more times before I'm ready for the exchange. We need to wait until my skin heals from radiation before that can happen - I would prefer the redness and peeling to be gone before I start stretching the skin, ya know? I also have to consider Phish. We're going to see their first concert in almost 5 years, and I can't enjoy myself if I'm sore, tired, or writhing in pain with C Dif. I'll be able to get the expanders filled in about a month, but the surgery will have to wait until after Phish.

Playing the Card

So, today was treatment 20 of 33. I'm almost two thirds of the way there!

It started as most days do, leaving the house at 8:15 and driving to the hospital. The techs were running a little late today, but all that means is that instead of getting on the table around 8:35, I was there at my scheduled 8:45 time. I met with The Zapper, as I do once a week. I got my coffee (today's flavor was Creme Brulee, which was yummy).

As I walked into the parking lot lobby where I validate my parking pass, I noticed that the automated machines were out of order. You see, normally I get a voucher at the radiation clinic. When I put the parking ticket into the machine, I use the voucher to validate the ticket so that I can leave. The machine cancels the voucher and returns both the ticket and the voucher. As you may remember from my last blog post, I save the vouchers and write the day on them and then line them up on my desk. Every day it's my way of telling myself that treatment is over for the day, work has begun, and I can live a normal life for the next 22 hours or so.

So, today the machine was out of order and I had to talk to a "real person" to get my parking pass validated. I knew this was trouble. As I walked up to the window, I asked the clerk if I could keep the voucher.

"No, I can't, because it isn't going to do you any good."

"Well, I know, but the machine usually gives it back and I save them."

"I can't give it back to you because you can't use it any more, it won't work."

"I KNOW..." and then I was upset. Instead of speaking logically, I knew that the best way for me to get my damn voucher was to play the card. Instead of fighting to stay composed, I let tears well up in my eyes a little...

"I come to radiation EVERY DAY and I save these vouchers to keep track of how many days I have left. These are IMPORTANT to ME."

And that took care of it. For about 5 seconds there I don't know if I made myself cry (which I SWEAR I have never done), or I just neglected to stop myself from crying. Either way, I got my damn voucher back, and now it's in its rightful place on my desk with "day 20" written on it.

Hello, Stranger!

[ducks as everyone reading this throws rotten tomatoes]

Okay, that's over.

Yes, yes, I know it's been quite sometime since I've posted. Quite frankly, not much has happened cancer-wise. Today was my 15th radiation treatment, and I have 18 more to go. I've been very busy at work (in a good way), and by the time I get home I haven't felt much like blogging.

I do like the routine of radiation. I get up in the morning, get ready, then head off to the hospital around 8:15. I take the same route (there's really only one way to get there), drive up to the 3rd floor of the parking garage (because there are more empty spaces up there) and park my car. I walk down the stairs, across the drive, and into the big revolving door. Head to Elevator B, Floor B, check in, then head for the changing room. I have to put on a hospital gown on top, but I get to keep everything else on. I grab my book (which I usually don't have time to read) and put everything else in the locker.

Then, if they're running early, the radiation techs are waiting for me and I head straight into Room 3. Otherwise, I'll sit in the waiting room for 5-10 minutes. Recently, I've been talking to another patient, but for awhile I was by myself in the morning. When I get into Room 3, I lie on the radiation table and then the leveling begins. It usually takes between 3-5 minutes for them to line up my body on the table using the tattoos and lasers. Once I'm where I belong, they leave the room and the zapping begins. That part lasts about another 5 minutes. Every other day I have a wet towel that they put on my skin that increases the dose to the area.

Then I leave, put my clothes back on, head up to the 1st floor and get a coffee. I put my parking ticket in a machine, along with a voucher I get for radiation, and then I'm on my merry way. I keep track of the parking tickets and write the day on them so I know how many treatments I've finished. They're all lined up on my desk at work:

So far, my skin is in pretty good shape. It's a little pink. It was worse last week, but I found that one of the creams I was using (recommended by the radiation clinic) was irritating my skin. It was pretty thick and goopy, so I think it wasn't letting my skin breath. I switched to something lighter, and my skin was visibly lighter about an hour after I put it on!

Today they marked my skin for the "scar boosts" that they'll be doing at the tail end of the treatment. It involves 5 doses to the area around the incision. In order to plan for it, I got sharpie markings all over my chest. It looks like a kindergartner went a little crazy on my foob (faux boob).

Anyway, I'll be getting to sleep. It's a big day tomorrow!

1 Down, 32 To Go

Today was my first day of radiation. Pretty uneventful. My appointment was at 8:45 AM, and I was accompanied by my loving copilot, Rusty. We got to the center around 8:35, and I was out of there by 9:05. The process is very simple:

- Check in at the front desk.
- Go to a changing room and put hospital gown on, put clothes in locker.
- Wait in waiting room (which I didn't even have to do today because they were a bit ahead of schedule!)
- Go to radiation room, where techs darken my tattoos with a sharpie then position and level my body.
- Sit there for 10 minutes as the machine moves all around and makes funny noises.

Once a week, I have to meet with either the doctor (The Zapper) or her nurse practitioner. Today happened to be that day. So, although it took a half hour, it won't always take that long.

A couple of hours after radiation I was sitting at my desk at work and I felt a bit of a subcutaneous itch on my left side. This was pretty weird because I can't really feel much on the left side of my chest. I tried to touch it or itch it, but I couldn't get it. I ignored it and it finally went away which is good because there was really no way for me to effectively scratch it.

Right now, my skin feels fine, but they definitely stressed that I should be putting stuff on it before it feels burned, which makes sense. However, there are SO many restrictions. I can't use anything with metals (no aluminum, titanium, or zinc). This means most sunscreens. I can't use anything with fragrance. And I've also seen it suggested elsewhere that I should avoid products with alcohol. So, that basically eliminates just about everything, but they did give some sample tubes of things I should be using. One is called "Jean's Cream", developed by a cancer patient who used a homemade concoction during radiation. It uses mostly natural ingredients and it's supposed to work pretty well. It's not cheap, but only the best for my boobs, you know. There's also this really goopy Eucerin cream that I should use at night. Tonight will be my first night using it.

And that's about it. Here's hoping I sail right through radiation :-)

Radiation Tomorrow

Sorry, this will be a short post, but I figured it was better to have a few words than none at all. My radiation "dry run" went very well on Friday. I met with the nurse and she went over things I should use on my skin and things I should avoid. The main side effects I'll experience are tiredness and skin irritation. After a couple of weeks, I'll get a "sun burn", and it could result in blistering (but the idea is to take care of it *before* that happens).

Tomorrow is my first day of radiation at 8:45 in the morning. The appointment should only last about 15 minutes, and I will have to go 5 days a week for about 6 and a half weeks. Oh Joy! :-)

Career Woman

Back to work.

I went in on Monday for the first time in about a month. Ah, it was good to be back. So good, in fact, that I stayed for a looong day. I knew Rusty was going to bowling on Monday night, so there wasn't much of a reason for me to rush home. Plus, it's nice to spend some time off the couch. And I'm getting kind of sick of The Price is Right.

My manager/team lead at work is great. He's a little older than me, and he really likes beer. In fact, a lot of us at work like beer. Many people are appalled when I tell them this, but there's a pub nearby that we visit once every other week or so for lunch (and beer). The managers and even our director goes, too. At my last job my boss was a beer nazi at work. It was a different industry.

Anyway, to ease back into the week, my manager took me to lunch at the pub. Oh, it was so delicious. There was a yummy Belgian-style honey ale that is just the beer of my dreams. Aside from the beer, we also got to talk a lot about how to ease back in and feel more productive at work. It was a good lunch.

I've had no trouble with driving at all, and my muscles are feeling so good, and almost back to normal. I hope to start a post-mastectomy Pilates DVD soon. My Pilates instructor is getting it to me via a friend, so I don't have it, yet, but I'm excited about exercising again.

My dry-run for radiation is on Friday. The purpose of this appointment is to make sure that the radiation tattoos and the LAZERS line up so I'm in proper placement for the actual treatment. They'll also go over some of the skin problems I can expect and the products I can use to help.

One last thing... I realized I forgot to review the pathology report after surgery. The tumor was .8 centimeters and less around, and they got very good "clean margins" because they took so much tissue. Also, the skin that was removed was all clear. For the lymph nodes, they took 11. That number really surprised me because a lot of times I hear about 20 or so lymph nodes. Now, that could be because he only took the first "level" of nodes, or it could also be because I only had that many. Everyone has a different number of lymph nodes, and the radiation oncologist says that she likes to see anything over 10. Anyway, 3 of the 11 nodes were positive for cancer cells. Not too bad. We were really hoping for 0, but at least it wasn't 9 :-)

The pathology was a little disappointing, and I know my medical oncologist (Mr. Wizard) was also a little disappointed. It's possible that the amount of time between chemo and surgery accounted for some growth. It's also possible that it didn't shrink as much as we thought it did. Either way, it was still a good response, just not a great response. But really, .8 cm is pretty small.

And the Winner Is...

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale!!! If you know me and my beer, that shouldn't be much of a surprise. It's my favorite beer of all time.

On Monday evening, I did a little googling. I figured, since I already decided to have my first beer the next day, let's look up why I shouldn't have had it in the first place. Big mistake.

Now, before you call me a square, know that this isn't one of those "alcohol should be avoided" types of medications. I was taking metronidazole (Flagyl), and when they say not to drink alcohol they're not joking. I read that you should even avoid things like mouthwash.

So, in my googling, I read that after you finish the antibiotics you should wait 3 days before drinking alcohol. THREE DAYS! What's a girl to do when she's been pining for beer for so long? Well, I looked up the side-effects and determined on my own that the way to approach this was to pretend I hadn't googled the information, drink lots of water, and have half a beer yesterday evening (over 24 hours after my last dose) and see if I had a problem. I did not, so I had the other half. Phew.

In non-alcohol-related news, I'm kind of happy about the early radiation thing now. I like that my incisions will get a chance to heal before we go expanding too much, and I'm also happy that I'm not having to deal with the discomfort of healing from surgery and the discomfort of expanding the tissue all at once. Of course, I'll look weird for much longer, but I guess I'll feel a lot better.

One more thing - Phish is coming back in March!!! The joke around the house is that I'd give my left boob to see Phish again. :-)