Cancer Remains, Radiation Begins

I saw my radiation oncologist on Wednesday; she gave me the results of the PET scan. There’s still some lymphoma left, even after all the chemotherapy. Papa tumour is being really stubborn!! It’s much smaller – it’s now only 14 x 17 mm. My doc says that the research on my kind of lymphoma is sparse and inconclusive, so my case had to be brought to the Lymphoma Rounds at the hospital – about 6 or 7 specialists got to weigh in on what to do with me. The verdict was – no more chemo (thank God), go for radiation. So the plan is to have 18 days regular radiation to all the cancerous spots, and 3 days called a “boost”, where the radiation is aimed just to that tumour. I’ll be done radiation on December 30th – just in time for the new year!

In other medical news, I’ve still been having chest pain, very reminscent of the pericarditic pain I used to have. I’ve also been a bit short of breath with a mild cough. My radiation oncologist isn’t sure what that’s about, since the tumour’s too small to be causing it – she thinks it might be viral. So I’m being referred to a cardiologist just to make sure. In the meantime, ibuprofen and I get to be friends again…

On to more pleasant things. Today was Day 3 of radiation therapy, and all has been going well so far. The sessions themselves are short and quick, and the radiation therapists are really friendly and upbeat. They have a radio on in the room, and on my first day they turned up the music at my request. I’m not sure what radio station it was on, but I liked it! I heard was “A Whole New World” – the Aladdin song (one of my favourites), “After The Love Has Gone” by Earth, Wind and Fire, and then Luther Vandross’ “Always and Forever” (not the most cancer treatment appropriate song LOL). R&B slow jams during cancer treatment don’t quite make sense, but good music is never unwelcome as far as I’m concerned. Today’s radiation song was “Steal My Sunshine” – I can’t get it out of my head…

This is a picture of the radiotherapy machine. I lie on the black table, and the table moves up and inwards, towards the head of the machine (the part that looks like the round stapler head). Then they make sure I’m in the right position, and take measurements to be absolutely certain. Then the radiation therapists leave the room, and the head of the machine rotates to go under the table – the first dose of radiation is from my back. Then it rotates again to the top and radiates to my chest. The whole thing takes less than 10 minutes, and it’s completely non-invasive and painless. Sooo different from chemo…

The side-effects so far are minimal. My skin does burn a little after the session, but it’s not too bad. I did have terrible fatigue yesterday – I can’t remember the last time I felt so tired! It’s very different from chemo fatigue. Chemo fatigue was more associated with lethargy – I felt listless, unenergetic, sluggish. With radiation, it just feels like pure exhaustion, the kind of tired you get after a long day of hard labour. I actually dozed off in front of the television at around 7pm (which never happens to me), and was in bed before 10pm (again, a notable event). So there will likely be a lot of sleeping involved with radiation therapy! I’ll take fatigue over insomnia any day…