Tag Archives: IMRT

two out of six weeks DONE!

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i am glad to be done with this week and to have two days to rest and not have to get my brain fried. this was a harder week, or at least the end of it was.

i have been fighting nausea all day since i woke up. it comes and goes but it’s been a bit more intense when it is there. still hasn’t really affected my appetite – in fact somehow eating seems to make it feel better – but i have felt pretty crappy all morning while working. i just got back from my treatment and was hoping to pick up the anti-nausea meds my doc called in for me at cvs on my way home but they weren’t ready yet. i am also dog sitting for debra and karen who are vending at blues and bbq fest and cat sitting for my neighbor across the street, so i’ll have to go back out later anyways and i can grab it then.

the power went out at my place shortly before i left to go downtown. apparently a lot of midcity lost power i guess related to our high winds today and when i got to the hospital, they were running late because the power had flicked on and off a few times there, triggering the backup generators, so it caused some chaos. this happened before i got there thankfully and the power was back on but i had to wait a little longer than usual in the dressing room for my treatment. there was a poor woman in there also waiting who told me her whole story – she has lung cancer, which she’d already beaten once 7 years ago, but now it’s back in a different location and she’s getting chemo and radiation. she’d finished her chemo and then they send her to radiation after. she was groaning a lot, i guess in pain or some level of discomfort. i felt bad for her. they ended up taking me back before her, even though she was in the dressing room waiting before i got there. (there are two radiation rooms so i’m imagining she was going to the other one.)

so yeah. the longer i go through this, the more grateful i am that my actual time on the table with radiation pumping into me is only 3-4 minutes. the lady in the waiting room said her radiation treatments were like 12-15 minutes long. there is no way i could sit still that long in that mask so definitely grateful for that. but i am becoming more sensitive i think to the treatment. i really don’t know how to describe the feeling that comes over me when i hear the machine turn on and the beam is engaging with my head. it’s sort of like plunging into water, going below the surface, the pressure change that happens in your head. it’s a little uncomfortable but not really painful, just weird. it’s a wave of discomfort that washes over me but then i adjust and it’s ok for the rest of the time, as i count my breaths til it ends.

hope everyone has a great weekend! and if you are in the path of the storm that thankfully did not come to us, i hope you stay safe.

week 1 of 6 done!

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cause for celebration, indeed. i’ve made it through my first week of brain radiation treatments and it hasn’t been awful. i wouldn’t say it’s been fun, but i’m getting used to being strapped into the mask and it’s been overall relatively easy this week. i know it will get harder as i go but i gotta celebrate along the way. i did a hard thing. and now i have 2 days to rest and recuperate before doing it again.

things i’ve experienced physically this week: small headaches, thankfully nothing too bad and ibuprofen has been enough to control them; intermittent mild nausea, which seems to be better when i’m on ibuprofen which makes sense cuz it’s the inflammation of my brain that causes the nausea; other mild digestive changes, of which i’ll spare you the details; a little bit of itchiness on my scalp right after my treatments, but it goes away; fatigue has been hard to measure but i definitely have felt more tired after treatments and into the evening, but feel better after sleep and have been able to work just fine in the mornings.

the other stuff is harder to talk about and explain, the psychological toll. there’s just n unsettling feeling of yeah, they fried some of my brain cells this week. i feel a little slow in general. and that chlorine smell i mentioned that i smell as soon as the radiation starts beaming into my head is starting to make me feel a little nauseated on the table. it dissipates as the treatment goes on and thankfully it’s only for a few minutes, but yeah, i do not like that smell. it’s the smell of actively burning my brain cells and my skin and hair in exchange for *hopefully* damaging the tumor cells so they stop growing.

no changes to my skin or hair yet that i can tell, aside from the itchiness i mentioned above. i am starting to wonder if i’m gonna have a line of hair loss across from one side of my head to another cuz it feels to me when i’m on the table that the machine is tracking from the big spot on my right side, where it spends more time, all the way over to the smaller spot on my left side, where it ends. like it doesn’t turn off and reposition, it’s continuous, a smooth movement and i hear the sound and smell the smell the whole time. so who knows. i might need a very creative mohawk or other punk rock hairdo for a while once it starts falling out. lol

i keep forgetting to try to take some pictures of something while i’m there to have some visuals for these blog posts. but since there’s no metal allowed in the radiation room, debra has been holding on to my phone and other things while i go in. but maybe i can ask the techs on a slow day if i can take some pictures. they probably wouldn’t mind.

oh, and the last thing i’ll tell you… today mysteriously my appointment time got changed to 1:45 instead of 2pm in the portal, no notification whatsoever. i just happened to look in the portal for something else and saw it. so i hustled to get home from my last dog walk and showered/changed and eat something before picking debra up and going down there. we ended up getting there early cuz gratefully there was an open spot in the oncology parking lot today. so we made it, but i was hustling. and i hate feeling rushed.

i also noticed in the portal that monday’s appointment had been changed to 1:30. so when they brought me back, i asked the techs about it. they said don’t ever worry about what it says in the portal – it has a mind of it’s own. go by the paper calendar they gave me, which indicates 2pm for every day going forward except monday it does say 1:45. they think it got changed today just cuz it’s friday, and, ya know, wanting to start the weekend. and monday, well that’s a saints game – monday night football! since the medical center is really close to downtown and the superdome, traffic starts getting crazy down there after noon, what with all the tailgating and champion’s square and all that. so they try to move people up on the schedule to get done sooner. that cracked me up. of course, a saint’s game! gotta love this town. who dat!

2nd day done!

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today went so quick. it helped that debra and i knew the drill about how to just walk in and scan in at radiation and go to the dressing room to wait. we were early for my 2pm appointment – like maybe 1:40-1:45 – but they took me back within 5 minutes. same tech team. still nice, though maybe a little less effusive than yesterday since it was now my second day. lol

i swear it went faster than yesterday… like, my actual time on the table and with the radiation on felt like less. but the techs said it was exactly the same as yesterday so i guess i’m just getting used to it or just wasn’t as nervous. it’s not quite 15 minutes on the table; it’s more like 10-12, with the first few minutes of them taking xrays. i can tell the difference in the sounds of the machines. but i was done and out of there by a few minutes past 2. literally a half an hour in and out.

i only took a half of an ativan today, to see the difference. much more manageable, i.e. it didn’t give me double vision. i’m not even sure i need to keep taking it from here on out.

i did once again smell chlorine, only when the radiation machine came on. it wasn’t as strong as yesterday but i smelled it. i’ll have to ask my radiation doc about that at my next check in. so weird.

other news to report: i did end up with a slight headache last night after my first treatment. the radiation can swell your brain so headaches are normal side effects and my radiation oncologist told me to let him know if i experienced any. so i sent him a note through the portal just to report that. i took an ibuprofen last night – what he suggested – and it seemed to work as i slept really well. but i did wake up with it again this morning, so i took more ibuprofen. i guess i should stock up on it. (i really really hate taking it cuz it’s so bad for your kidneys and i went through such a long time in my late 30s into my 40s taking SO MUCH ibuprofen because of my fibroids. but he said ibuprofen is much better at combatting inflammation than tylenol so it was his choice. so ibuprofen it is.)

i probably won’t keep writing each day unless something interesting or notable happens. maybe i’ll do an end of week, or weekend, recap. i dunno. i don’t want to overwhelm anyone with all these entries. i have much more to say about what a strange experience this is but i’ll hang on to that until i have a few more sessions under my belt. that’s all for today.

onward!