Thinking Ahead . . .

singletona80

Im thinking about going on a vacation later part of Jan. . . ( i deserve it after all im going through Anyways I have sort of been calculation my treatment plan in my head and I think I will be going through rads around that time . Last round of chemo 11/2,  Im scheduled for surgery 11/23, then doctor said rads usually 3-6 weeks later , that puts me at starting rads somewhere between the middle of December until the early part of January. Has anyone missed rads appts and if so what happened ?? Can rads be delayed for like 8-9 weeks after surger??

Im going to talk to my doctor and see what he says but I wanted to get a feedback from people that are actually going through it.  If its somethings thats going to "jeopardize" my health I wont go.  However I feel I need a "break" from all the cancer, was has totally consumed my life.

Alyad

They generally want you to start rads within 6-8 weeks. I did surg before chemo so its a little different- I had last chemo 6/19 and started rads first week of august and that was pushing it- I had delay bc of going out of town to get a second specialist opinion and then my local rads onc waiting to get the specialist's plan, and then I had IMRT /tomotherapy and my local place had never used that machine for bc before and there was planning... etc. It was about 7-8 weeks after chemo for me.

I totally understand wanting to plan a get away though! If you made your vacation plans known- you might be able to try to push to start rads earlier- but its also going to depend on your healing after surgery.

Also rads wiped me out physically- not as much as chemo, but I'm not sure I would felt up to a enjoying a vacation right afterwards. All you can do is ask your oncs and say I'd really like to plan a vacation- is there anyway we can make this work?

Congrats on your last chemo today !!!!

nowords

Hi again...I had chemo May and June 09, Two weeks later Surgery, 3 weeks later rads. I was told I could not wait. My pathology was a 10 plus cm tumor and 7 of 22 nodes positive with lots of extranodal extension (nodes bursting with cancer)...PET scan showed no visible mets but the team was pretty insistent that I if I chose to do rads, which they highly recommended, that I did it ASAP...I think the idea is to kill any stray cells before they have the chance to go somewhere else.

I was started on  Tamoxifen a week after surgery and did 30 rads. I was okay...I was not working at the time, but I could have worked...as rads went on I felt like I was pushing through a thick fog and the Tamoxifen and Chemo put me into instant menopause so I was emotional too....it all passed but I do not think I would have enjoyed a vacation much until a few months after rads were done...in my case, maybe 3 months later...

BarbaraA

Ask your radonc for the Canadian Protocol. That is 16 tx (1/2 the time of a normal round). It took me 3-1/2 weeks and the dosage was a little higher than the standard but I had a great result consmetically. I did a lot of research and there is no difference recurrance-wise ot cosmetically.