March 2009 Rads Group?

#14 for me today & all of a sudden I feel like I have been hit by a ton of bricks!! I wasn't on here last week because I ended up having to have surgery & have my gallbladder removed. I was sick for 2 weeks before. So probably a combination on the surgery & rads has hit me. I don't know??

Does anyone else have severe tiredness? Like you can hardly put one foot in front of the other?

The radiation tech told me that the last 5 of my 30 treatments are electron boosts so with number 13 tomorrow I'll be half way through the whole breast rads.

Hey nelia48...I have started on the Arimidex as well...2 weeks so far.  A couple of things that I noticed on the Arimidex group, some of the women who switched from taking the Arimidex at night to taking it in the morning had an easier time sleeping.  Also, I have noticed that I am getting the "night sweats" back (been there, done that years ago) however, I started drinking coffee again and think that might be contributing to the sweats.  Fortunately mine are not to bad and happen around 4:30 am.  Figure I will stop the coffee for 2 weeks to see if it makes any difference.  If the difference is negligable then I'm back on the coffee...cos I love my coffee!!!  

PurpleMe, I do take the Arimidex in the morning, and I only drink 1 mug of coffee per day.  I've tried different times of the day to take the pill, but it seems the longer I'm on the pill, the more consistent the night sweats are.  My dr. said there really isn't much out there to take, as most are hormone based and we can't have that.  Even the natural herbal stuff is stuff that stimulates the hormones.

mfgibby, I had #24 today.  We're seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, aren't we??????  That was so nice of the cancer center to think of your kids like that. 

Have a great weekend!  Two days off from Rads!

Oh, My!!!!!  I hate to whine and complain here, but I'm really having a hard time.  My chest is soooo red and blistered, and the surgery scar is all scabby and crusty and hurts terribly when I move.  It doesn't help that I have this magic marker black circle drawn on me now, and I'm not supposed to wash that off.  How can I use any cream or ointment if I can't wash it.  It's already starting to run, fade, and get lighter.  I had the most miserable night last night as that scar hurts terribly!  Anyone with any suggestions?????

Martha, they said to be careful over the weekend not to wash off the ink markings.  I could put the cream on inside the circle and outside the circle, but not to get it on the lines.  But I'm wondering how I'm supposed to wash it all before Monday's treatment?  I may just retrace the lines myself. 

I was told to wash any cream or deodorant before treatment as well. Not a problem for me since my appt is first thing in the morning.

Nelia, why did they draw a circle on your chest? I had 5 or 6 pin point tatoos, to line up the radiation machine. Also after treastment #25 I only have a bit of redness around the scar. I have 8 more treatments to go.

Good Luck.

It is odd how the instructions differ. Mine said nothing about washing off the lotions. I use aloe vera and Eucerin Daily Replenishing lotion. My appointment is mid-day so washing off before it would be really inconvenient. The only deoderant I'm allowed to use is Tom's of Maine and they didn't say anything about washing that off either.

When they did my initial simulation, they had a wire taped to my scar so they would know where it is from the X-rays. I wonder if my onc will need to draw some marks on or whether the X-ray plus my 3 tattoos will be good enough to line it up.

@$$d!! Anyway I finished nine rads and will have four more this coming week, (our machine is goofy too so they gave me Mon. off), then the following week, I finish up with three more. I'm doing the Canadian shortened version and so far I'm doing ok.

I'm the sensitive type that felt it the very first day, and twinged pink the first day too. I'm just using pure aloe gel, and when I shower I use pure aloe soap but I really use the soap sparingly on my right breast. I only use all natural products and creams. No parabens.

I think someone asked about those a couple posts back. To quote from Dr Servan Schreiber's book, Anticancer A New Way of Life, page 78, "some xenoestrogens simply come from certain plastics and some by-products of industrial waste disposal we are regularly exposed to. They are even widely found in beauty and household products." Avoid parabens and phthlates in cosmetics and skin care products that contain estrogens or placental by-products." This may not be a concern if your tumor was/is ER negative. But my tissue was found positive for ER receptors. And xenoestrogens (pollutants) are hormonal disruptors and imitate structures of certain human hormones - which can set off a chain reaction sparking the growth of cancerous cells.

So do your research ladies. Breathe, exercise, eat organic clean healthy food, be good to yourselves, and look in the mirror and tell yourself how beautiful you are.  

Mamie, it was beautiful here yesterday. It has been sunny but the days were still cool and sometimes windy but yesterday it was calm and warm.

After the weekend off, my skin is just barely pink. The outside is doing well but my breast feels very tender inside. Today will be #14 of 25 whole breast Tx then there will be 5 boosts. Nancy, my boosts will be electron too.

I hope everyone was helped by the weekend off.

Hiya gals, looks like this here's my train too.  I came here all freaked out (right, like everyone) and you helped me a lot.  A lot.  A previous poster said it better- how I feel humbled in the presence of my sisters who went through chemo.  Like I shouldn't even speak I am so lucky.  But thanks to you, I got help I needed, then I helped someone else, so I promised myself to post here and let you know.  It was SO empowering to be able to help someone else- that's the me I know, pre-cancer. Being able to do something for someone who has cancer and being able to see myself as me again is just a total frikin high.  They stopped me at the hospital entrance today, I think because I looked so happy that I didn't belong there- but I do.  And leaving, I saw a boy in a wheelchair with his parents, that makes me the most angry at cancer.  OK OK, I should stick to the subject at hand.

 My oncotype is 17 - so I escaped chemo just barely.  I also have a 1 year old and I am a single mother at 48.  OK right, back to the subject. 

How I got help from you- well a lot of things in this thread.  My FIRST day of radiation (I need to learn all the abbreviations) I had big side effects.

 I am a 36 D in am underwire sport bra (so first thanks to all the big boobed ladies for sharing, I have to wear a bra of some sort.  I looked into corsets at one point, reasoning that their support comes from the belly, not the "band" of a bra that's right under the boob.  I am too fat to pull off a corset, but anyone interested, try orchard corsets, they are really nice and helpful and have all sorts of boobery stuff.

Then I got some vests from the Levis Store.  They have two kinds, a denim look and a white one with thin red stripes.  The denim is actually stretch material, but both shrink when washed, even if dried alone.  My plan was to wear the vests with nice soft t shirts- perhaps inside out if need be for support and modesty, and wore the denim ones to bed even before starting to get used to it.    I got size L, I wear like a sized 14, and they are really tight.  

So that first day, actually the morning after, I wake up with Pamela Anderson's boob.  I thought it was funny, remembered how I had read women asking to have their other boob radiated after the instant boob job, I had the same thought.  But I thought it was supposed to take a while to happen, not just one treatment. Then the exhaustion hit me- like a ton of bricks.  This was not what I had planned so carefully in terms of child care or life etc... if I was already exhausted with ONE day, and its cumulative, what would it be after another day, a week, 6 weeks?  The good news is that it all went away the next day.  For that day, even the vest wasn't hiding my very lopsidedness.  

The nurse practicioner said I should go ahead and wear my underwire bra, I need the support, and the wire doesn't come near my incision.  This is a good thing because I have had very droopy boobs since I was 8, and going another month without a bra would probably send them to my knees.  But going to bed the weight of my boob was pulling on my scar, so I put back on one of the ill-fitting wireless bras. (As a techno geek, I get a kick out of calling them "wireless" bras, as if they were bluetooth).  Next morning I had the usual marks from where the wireless bra cuts into my skin, then i put back on my underwire bra.  That was this past Thursday.  On Sunday  I walked with my father for about 5 miles that day, had a great great day, then when I was getting ready for bed, I took off the underwire bra to put on the wireless, and saw this huge red bra mark on my treated boob- and nothing on my untreated boob.  I ASSumed it was from the wireless bra, having seen it that morning, and freaked out.  I emailed my doc (she's amazing) and she could not say it was not permanent.  

Well of course that blew my mind so I hit the Internet, the ACS, the NIH, never found anything about permanent disfigurement, so I ended up here.  Although no one had these problems (thank heavens), it helped me a lot to see how other women felt the same way as I do.  You have all gone through so much more, and are much better patients than I am, and yet nearly everything you wrote I could have written.  So that was the first way you helped me.  

The second was someone writing about removing the wire from her underwire bras.  While I was reading all these posts I was reminded to re-apply the cream I use.  (btw, my doc says there have been reliable tests to show the best product is calendula, so that's what I use.  I also use aloe, because I figure that can't possibly hurt anything.  My doc prefers not even corn starch, no powders at all, but suggested I use a piece of cotton from a cut up t shirt under my boobs to collect the sweat instead.  Works great- and it also holds some of the creams on. )  So when I went to put the cream on- the mark was GONE.  Turns out it was from the underwire bra.  I guess it was sitting funny on that boob, or the exercise or something made it push into the swollen skin.  I was grateful for the near miss- but haunted by my doc saying she couldn't say it wasn't permanent.  I figure this was a warning.

So what do I do, I need the support but fear the underwire for marks and whatever else.  So I remembered what that poster said about taking out the underwire.  Today, Pamela Anderson's boob came back, and I had no way to disguise it.  I took otu the underwire on ONE side of the bra, put it back on and voilá, droopy boob supported enough to nearly match radiated Pamela Anderson boob.  So that was the second way you helped me.  I will post next how I helped someone else, just in case this is too many words for one post. 

I was reading in one of my two favorite BC books (Five Lessons I Didn't Learn from Breast Cancer) how one gal was a bit germophobic, especially after chemo, how she wore gloves in radiation because she wasn't sure how often they cleaned the handle bar.  I thought that was brilliant, being a germophobe myself.  I also usually wear velvet gloves anyway in the winter, I sort of collected them over the years.  My first day of radiation one of the tech complimented my velvet gloves, so I figured what the heck, and I wore them for treatment.  It was my little piece of control, of me, I know you know what I mean.  I handle this stuff with comedy- and research.  For example, when I had my colonoscopy I put a temporary tattoo of a Van Gogh masterpiece sideways on my arse.  I figured they should have something nice to look at back there.  But it was really my way of exerting control over the situation... like, yes, you have me knocked out and vulnerable and exposed on a table ... but I am still present.  I really wanted to wear a stripper's tassle on my boob for surgery, but I was afraid they'd leave it on when they wrapped me up... anyway...

Also, my radiation place lets me bring my own music on ipod or CD for treatments.  So we had a bunch of fun that day and each day since I try to wear a different pair of cool gloves and the techs are so nice and comment on them.  In the old days I would have tried to wear stilettos to match.  Now I am a mommy and I have to get that exercise in so I wear walking shoes.

Yesterday I was chatting with some people who were there to support their friend on her first day of radiation and they noticed my gloves and we had a laugh about it.  Then their friend came back, she was just before me.  I had my treatment and when I came back I heard the techs talking to this woman who had been before me, and asking her if she felt ready to try again.  She had freaked out.  She didn't know it was  going to take so long and she was most disturbed that there was "no communication" she was left alone (we know you have to be, can't be radiating the techs all day every day) and it was cold etc.  

Since I had already had my freak out, I asked if I could be any help to the newbie. Her friends had told her about my gloves.   I offered her to try my gloves- I was wearing red velvet at the time, and she didn't want to be a bother, she said she only needed one, because one hand was cold.  I said hey, I have a selection, and showed her the weeks supply of colors I had brought.  She picked a gold striped pair, smiled and completed her treatment.  When she was back we were all laughing and joking.

So if it helps anyone, you can try wearing gloves during treatment!

I've been so excited about this I haven't even been tired today!

Today is day 6 for me, I have Pamela Anderson's boob, it's red and swollen, sometimes some little pains, sleeping on my back, drinking at least 1.5 liters of water a day, walking to appointments.  Swelling and fatigue seem to come and go. Alternating between the one-wired underwire bras and vests as applicable, no powders, using cut t shirts instead, using only calendula and aloe, but frequently and remembering to slather my underarm and underboob.

Thanks, I'll shut up now! (for a while, anyway) 

Welcome Rachael.  You make me smile.

Martha......Me too on the hair thing.  Not much on top but lots on the sides.

Interesting observation today.  I'm day 14 and I asked my rad onco why I had a rash on my collar bone and neck, she said I was getting rads all the way to the top of my shoulder.  I didn't know this or I would have applied the pure vit E oil there as well.  So it looks like I performed my own single blind, phase 1 trial.  No problem with the boob except for mild looking sun burn.

 This is what I do.  Pure vit E oil goes on like honey so it stays there for a long time.  Then I put on a cotton sports bra that holds the oil on the treated area.  Warning: the oil doesn't come out of the bra.  I also put a terry cloth wash cloth (rolled up) under my boob due to a fold from feeling 3 children.  When I get home from rads I take a shower, lube up an then put on a old t-shirt to help with the goo.  My boob is still greasy the next day.

Anyone want to share how they are doing and what has worked for them?  What day you're on is helpfull too.