Radiation Update

Woops, y'all, it's been ages since I posted! Here's what's new.

Radiation is going well. I started on October 30. I drive down to an annex office right outside of the Medical Center (aka, free parking) 5 days a week, but the appointment is short. I'm usually in and out in 20 minutes, except the one day a week I have to see the doc, and then it's more like an hour or so. But, it takes about an hour driving each way. I am down to 7 more sessions - 4 boost and 3 regular, and I'm SO ready to be done. The radiation itself isn't so bad, but the driving and juggling appointments and kids and life is wearing me out. 

I'll have a total of 28 regular sessions, where they zap the entire breast/armpit/collarbone area, and then 5 boost sessions where they only zap the area around the incision. This was supposed to be sequential, but I'm having some major skin irritation under my arm, so they decided to pause the regular sessions, do the boost, and then we will go back and finish up the last of the regular sessions. The official name for this is a "sandwich boost" and it gives my skin a chance to recover. 

I also have about 47 creams I'm using. At night, I use a thick cream recommended by my plastic surgeon to coat the whole area, from my lower ribs, up over my shoulder and down my shoulder blade, and under my arm. Right after treatment, I have a thinner cream that the radiation oncologist recommended called Miaderm. Now that I'm dealing with some skin irritation, I have a prescription called Silvadine, aka, Magic Cream. After just three uses, my skin feels dramatically better. The downside is that it stains clothes... so I'm wearing James's old work shirts. (So if you see me around, he has 3-4 of the same shirt, and I'm wearing them all - not just the same one several days in a row!)

I have been really lucky to find a great babysitter in my neighborhood for Luke. He loves going to "Tessie" house (Jessica, or Jessie for short), and even packs his own backpack every day with his blankie, paci, and water, along with some random toys. He also pretends to drive to her house and tells me bye-bye, and asks to go there on days he doesn't have to. If you know Luke, you know this is HUGE because prior to the last couple months, I'd never really left him anywhere successfully except with family!

And that's the story of radiation, which is kind of all-consuming right now. I've been sick for, I dunno, about 6-7 weeks now? with a cough and runny nose. I'm finally almost over it all, thank goodness. Still a lingering cough that just doesn't want to go away, even with Mucinex. Whatever, I like sounding like a 70-year-old smoker, it's sexy.

I'm still doing my Herceptin/Perjeta infusions every 3 weeks. Sort of. I did #9 this past Monday, but I had a big delay for #8. My first and second ones after chemo ended (so, #6 & #7) were at the Baytown hospital, which should have been more convenient, but was just a big headache. I loved the nurses there, but didn't care for the doctor. See, I kept my main oncologist, Dr. Patel, but she doesn't have privileges at Baytown, so her colleague was signing my orders, and... he was not Dr. Patel. I went in 4 different times to try to receive infusion #8, and finally got it on the 4th try because she was on the phone telling him to give it to me, I think. He was delaying it because some of my blood counts were low, but these medications don't cause that, so delaying didn't do any good. So, to make a long story short, #9 was back at the Med Center (where I got all my chemo sessions) and it was nice and smooth. I'll be going there for the remainder of my sessions.

That's about all going on over here. I'm ready to finish radiation so that I can relax a bit and enjoy Christmas!