time between surgery simulation and radiation

fac03

I had the simulation on Dec 20, and as of today 12/31, I still do not have the schedule for the radiation.

I called the office and was told that due to the holidays, they expect to contact me early next week. It means that it will take more than 15 days between the simulation and radiation, is it normal? I hate that they use a marker for my body and I have to be careful in making sure the stickers covering the marker stay on.

Also, my surgery was on November 11, it means that it will be two months after surgery before I have the radiation, is it too long?

I recalled the RO initially told me it would be okay to have the surgery within 6 weeks. When I called today, the nurse told me it is okay as long as it is less than 3 months.

I lose my confidence with people who treat me and just want to get this over with.

Betrayal

I did not have ink markers after the simulation but tiny tattoos to delineate the areas for radiation. There was a 4 week lag between surgery (had two lumpectomies 4 weeks apart) and when radiation was initiated, since RO wanted incision to heal. So I saw RO about a week after first surgery, had simulation about a week later and then had to delay start of radiation for second surgery. So I went from mid-February to the end of March before receiving first radiation treatment. The ink markers that the radiation techs applied then did not last (cream they gave me for skin made them disappear) and they had to reapply them frequently in the beginning.

This is a tough time of year to have any treatments due to holidays and availability of staff. I was told that radiation within 3 months is acceptable, so what you were told is fine. Good luck.

AliceBastable

My BS and RO said it's a twelve week window between surgery and starting radiation. I had lumpectomy on 7/11/2018, re-excision on 8/8/2018, an unrelated larger abdominal surgery on 9/18/2018, set-up for rads on 10/16/2018, radiation final set-up 10/23/2018, and first of 33 sessions on 10/29/2018. They were really pushing me to start a week or so earlier, but I knew my body couldn't handle the amount of stretching I'd have to do. As it was, I felt pretty horrible the first few weeks and then reached a healing point where the stretching no longer hurt. They counted elapsed time from the re-excision, not the lumpectomy.

MinusTwo

I had neoadjuvant chemo without complete response, so after surgery I had a second chemo. That meant 4 months between surgery and radiation. Everyone was more concerned with the state of my health than rushing things.

Cowgirl13

I had my surgery first and then had chemo. It was about 5 months after my surgery that I had radiation.

AliceBastable

I think having chemo doesn't count against the time between surgery and radiation, because it's working against cancer cells throughout the body like radiation would do in targeted areas.

MinusTwo

You're likely right Alice. So it was 4-6 weeks after last active treatment before rads. I lost 60 lbs that I didn't need to lose with chemo and my WBC tanked. They wouldn't let me start rads until I'd stabilized.

grapemilk

I had surgery on Dec. 30 and I'm still waiting on radiation as of Feb.12. They've got me scheduled on the 28th of Feb. to be seen by a radiologist, but that's not the day it starts. Is this delay bad?

ctmbsikia

There are a lot of women here that get started in a 4-8 week window. I don't know that there is actually an established time window, but I have found, as mentioned above the 10 to 12 week window. One also cannot find anything on the what if radiation is started beyond 12 weeks?

With worry about metastasis maybe the bigger question is how long from diagnosis? A lot of cancers have been in our bodies for a very long time so obviously it's concerning to get treated as quickly as possible. Since I consider cancer an epidemic the hospitals and treatment centers are overloaded. Maybe not all, but mine was. I was 10 weeks getting going with rads. My first simulation doing the breath hold failed so back in I went and I was granted my wish to go prone. This was in between waiting for an appt., waiting for the plan to go through, and once I finally received a schedule it was hardly worth the paper it was written on. There were many, many days I was waiting for hours, as were a lot of other folks. Felt so bad for all the other patients. We all took it in stride as the staff worked very hard under pressure conditions and we all ended up getting our treatment completed. Radiation for me was a little stressful, I was glad to get it done.

Good luck to everyone.

AliceBastable

ctmbsikia

Wow, that's a horrible set-up where you got rads. I had a set-up appointment of less than an hour, a final set-up of about 15 minutes, then each rad session took about 5 minutes, including positioning. Mondays added a few minutes for a pre-treatment x-ray, then another few minutes to chat with the radiologist and nurse after. Most days when I got there they were ready for me, or I waited just a few minutes.

ctmbsikia

I was at a hospital. There’s 1 machine. First question I asked the RO was how many patients he was currently treating. He said 40 or 42 patients. Simple math told me a 15 min slot x 40 is a 10 hr day. My 2nd simulation and 1st treatment was at 8:45PM!! I was walking behind my RO on the way out that night and I heard him say to someone he had puttingin 12-14 hr days. Need more machines.