This has been a very tiring week for me. Not only did I
start radiation this week, but if you aren’t on Facebook and didn’t hear, I
found out that my respiratory bug ended up being walking pneumonia. I have had a cough for a while, and yes I
should have gone to the doctor sooner but I kept putting if off thinking that I
was getting better. Not real smart I know but it has been a little overwhelming
for me getting adjusted back to the school routine with my energy levels so
low. I realized this week though that my cough wasn’t getting better and that I
felt worse this week than I did a couple weeks ago when I was closer to the
last chemo treatment. The doctor said that my chest x-ray really didn’t show
anything but when listening to me I
sounded terrible. I am being treated right now as if it is bacterial walking pneumonia.
If it does not get better, the doctors may have to start looking into other
possible causes. I was a little surprised to learn that one of the chemo drugs
that I took can cause lung toxicity although not commonly. I’m just praying
that I just have normal pneumonia and that my compromised body will now be able
to fight it with the help of antibiotics.
I have now had four doses of radiation and am learning the routine.
The first day it took about half hour but I was told that they had to do extra
scans that day to make sure my marks were still in the correct places. I guess
they will periodically do this throughout treatment. I will also see the doctor
once weekly to check my skin and radiation area. On all the other days it will
be a very quick in and out. It probably only takes five minutes to get me lined
up on the table and do the radiation. I also found out for sure this week that
the doctor’s plan for me involves using a bolus for most of the treatments.
Since my doctor really hadn’t told me a lot up front, I did what I always do
and researched. From this research I knew that the bolus was coming and that I
wasn’t going to like it. Bolus is a fancy term for a warm wet towel. It feels
really good and the technician said that many women mistakenly think that they
are doing them a favor when they apply it, but they are not. What it does is “trick”
the machine. Deeper tissue gets more radiation than the skin. This is usually
what you want for a lumpectomy patient, but for a mastectomy patient the most
likely places that the cancer will recur is in the skin or chest wall muscle.
So the bolus “tricks” the machine and the skin now seems like deeper tissue
thus getting more radiation than normal. This means that the skin is much more
likely to break down and get more irritated. It is not a given though. Some
women still make it through OK I’m told.
As I said, this week has been a tiring week. I feel like it
has been harder to deal with stuff probably because I have been sick. I am now
six weeks out from chemo and I had felt that I was now starting to get into the
safe zone where I wouldn’t see new side effects. Unfortunately Taxotere seems
to be the chemo that keeps on giving. One morning I woke up to notice that half
of one of my eyebrows is now gone. I had been so glad to see that my eyebrows
and eyelashes had remained after four treatments and now this happens. My nails are now also
starting to pull away from the nail bed. Surprisingly it is not super painful,
but it was kind of upsetting to see both of these things happen when I thought
I was past all this. If they would have happened during chemo treatment, I think I would not have so shocked by them. But it is what it is.
Thanks for all the responses to my Facebook post for
prayers. It is comforting to know that I have lots of friends praying for me!
Hopefully this next week will go a little more smoothly! I know that no matter what happens that God is still in control and has a plan.
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