Welcome to the last phase of treatment!!  Yes I will be starting an additional anti hormone drug in November. But this will be the last treatment I have to physically go in and have something done to me over time. And to commemorate this I will be parking in front of the “Fire tree” in the garage.  So Radiation!  I have 32 sessions left after today. (33 in total) They never add and they will not release me early.  Evidently there is this magic number of 33 they come up with that gives the best results with doing the least damage.  If I miss one due to weather or because I need to take a break due to skin issues they tack those to the end. 

I did the math of the number of hours spent with Chemo and the number spent with Radiation…Chemo still wins with spending the most time there.  Roughly 56 hours with chemo and 16.50 hours total for Radiation.  I guess Radiation seems like more because its every day M-F for 33 days.  But the sessions are only 15-30 minutes. Note these times include set up time. But anyway….

I went in and I put the very stylish hospital gown on. (just top half). I had to wait in the dressing room until they came to get me.  Then I met my radiology team. There are 5 of them. I lay down on my back on the cool machine and they get me all lined up against all my awesome tattoos. They drew some lines on my chest. Evidently they will draw these lines every day. The theory is they come off in the shower…so they will know!!!!  LOL  Anyway, They took some pictures of my chest and finally zapped me. They do the top side and then the back side. So they radiate the entire area every day. Then they put this thing on my chest (not sure what it’s called yet…I’m sure I’ll learn more over the next few weeks). This pad on my chest is to force a concentration of radiation to the specific tissue where Cruella was. That was it.

I asked if there was anything I needed to do or not do. Any special creams or whatever they needed to give me.  I was told to just not put any lotion on my body like 3 hours before radiation treatment. Use all natural soaps and lotions and if I need to use deodorant on my left arm it should be natural (no aluminum). But they will give me things as I need them as things come up.  There is nothing they can give me to prevent skin issues, but there are things I should not use to keep skin issues from happening. We’ll see how any side effects (if any) come about.  Would be nice if I get out of this without any.  So far I’m a little tired today and I had some water and it tasted like metal.  Could be completely unrelated but I’ll keep an eye on it.

So this is my thing for the next month and a half.  Whoo Hoo.

In other news I had PT and it’s going to be real important to massage my arms and chest area and lymphatic massage.  Radiation will tighten things up so I need to really take care of that area and my skin. They sent over the prescription for my sleeve and glove today.  If the glove makes my hand feel better I’ll get one for my right hand as well.  I’ll only have to wear the sleeve and glove when I work out, any type of exercise or when it feels swollen. Hopefully it will stay that way and we can stay ahead of it.  If it gets worse we will deal with it at that time.