Week Two Begins

Up until last week, things with me have been super quiet hence why I haven't posted lately.  Pretty much my days had been occupied by long walks, going to the beach and trying to heal myself in as much isolation as possible.

The healing would have been a lot better if I wasn't on these damn steroids to heal the pneumonitis.  Of course I have experienced the typical and awful side effects of my dear friend Prednisone like "moon face" (not my description), joint pain in my knees to the point where I couldn't walk up the stairs, terribly tight muscles and of course my favorite, weight gain...  Over the course of the past month, I have negotiated my way down to 20 mg from 90 which is a huge victory on my part. Obviously I wish that I weren't on Prednisone at all but that is a battle I continue to lose.  I foresee another six weeks on this toxic drug.

Last Tuesday I began radiation which has been going pretty well. I'm not exhibiting any real side effects at this point: my throat is doing ok and my skin isn't too irritated -- all positive things!

When I met with Dr. M (my radiation oncologist) on Monday, he outlined what was going to happen for the next few weeks. In a nutshell, it was too risky and dangerous for my lungs to give me the full adult dose of radiation typical for Hodgkin's patients (3,000) so instead he was going to order 2,500, a dose consistent with pediatric radiation. He felt that this lower dose would be much more "kind" to my lungs and that a heightened risk of "tumor recurrence" was unlikely.  The only real difference I see is that the number of treatments I have to go through is less - hooray!!

I think the coolest part of the whole radiation process so far is the blocks they put in the machine.  The blocks help prevent the radiation from penetrating areas that don't need it like my heart and parts of my lungs. The blocks come in two parts: the first is inside the machine and can adjust to different shapes depending upon which area they are about to radiate.  This part is so cool and strangely similar to those toys you saw at the science store as a kid, you know, the ones where you can put your hand in the thing of nail-like metal things and it held the shape?  The second part is this tray that they slide into the machine that has two steel-looking cutouts that are in the exact shape of my vital organs.

My radiation team seems really nice - there are about six of them and they are all so precise (thankfully!) and kind. There have been points in my five treatments where I have felt a bit like a rag doll as they pull on the sheet to move me the smidge to the right they need.  All in all, this process is super quick. I might be on the table for five minutes, at the most!  The past few days, I have gotten in and out in less than 20 minutes which is so glorious and unlike chemo.

The next two weeks will be huge milestones for me: on Monday, August 30 is 90 days so that means no more restrictions and on Friday, September 3 I will finish radiation. I can't even tell you how exciting this is.  More updates on radiation to come.

xoxo

tiff