Halfway through Radiation

So far so good with radiation. My first day was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and the last day will be sometime the first week of January. They’ve added some extra days into the second week of January for any days missed in the process. I’m scheduled for 33 sessions. It’s going fast. I’m about half way through already!

The first step in the process was to get my right arm up high enough to get out of the rays pathway. The surgery removed a bit of muscle and a chunk of tissue from my right arm, limiting its range of motion. After 7 weeks with my fantastic occupational therapist, it was time to try radiation.

The next step was to align my body to precisely target the excised tumor areas. It required my arm to be held up for approximately 15 minutes while they adjusted my body a fraction of an inch here and there. At that stage, holding it up for more than 5 minutes was, let’s say, a good stretch. Once that was done, four quick, inky, needle pokes tattooed the dots they’d use to align my body with lasers for the actual radiation sessions.

My radiation team are very kind and they make the process easy and as comfortable as possible. The best part are two warm blankets they wrap around my arms and body. And it just took a couple sessions for the scar tissue to relinquish its tight hold on my right arm.

The main side effects to watch for are redness, like a sun burn, itching, and fatigue. I’ve had a bit of redness and itching, but just a bit. Applying lotion twice a day may be keeping it at bay. My naturopathic oncologist recommends a Manuka honey healing cream. I’ve found that a little goes a long way.

A correction, in the last post I wrote that I’d receive immunotherapy after radiation. I’m actually getting that now, every three weeks.

That’s the latest! Happy Holidays! 🎄

Love,
D’Arcy