Cancer Radiation

I had my appointment with radiologist this morning. First off, he said the physical therapist was not following the most recent guidelines that they have adopted, and since I have no lymph nodes removed  and at the angles that my radiation should be administered,  it should not involve my lymph nodes or damaged them in anyway, so I can play pickle ball and vacuum.

I go on the 5th to get my scan done so they can mark my breasts for the radiation.  I am tentatively scheduled to begin radiation Thursday, the 8th.

It is possible that my 21 treatments may turn into 30 treatments, depending on what the computer program shows once the scan is done on Monday. 

It will be the same amount of radiation, just spread out over a longer period of time, since it involves both breasts.

They gave me a list of creams to use and a recipe for a green tea concoction that I am supposed to spray over my breasts two or three times a day and let it soak into my skin before applying the lotion. Weird, but whatever. 

He said the treatments are painless, and I shouldn’t experience any side effects until probably by the end of the second week when I may start to notice a bit of red skin and perhaps feel a bit fatigued.

He assured me that I could drive myself to and from these appointments, and that is what I would like to do.  I know I have a lot of people who have volunteered to drive me. It just seems totally unnecessary. If I feel like I need a driver, I will let someone know.

I did talk to him about hormone pill making me nauseous and he told me he would like for me to give it another month before I tried a different medicine. And then he laid down the fact that they’re thinking it should be a 10 year pill instead of a five year pill, which thrilled me, as you can imagine. But I asked and he did say I could use the scopolamine patches and there was no long-term effect if I just needed to stay on those. I came home and put one on immediately.