September 2010 Rads

BocaCiegaBabe-I'll be thinking of you on Monday.  I'll toast you with some virtual champagne.  

DutchGirl- Hope you get over your fatigue soon.  I haven't had any and hoping it will stay that way.  Sleeping at least an hour later should help.  Thanks for your good wishes and thank you again for starting this thread.

Boca, I did not get inked up again for boosts.  They used the same tatoos and used the same sharpie marks for the boosts.  I hope that this is the case for you.

Dutchgirl, I am sorry you are feeling your fatigue now, but I am right with you..  I am surprised at how much fatigue I am feeling so late in the game (about 10 days Post final rads).  PS:  Thank you for the tamoxifen info...it was helpful.

 I have a question for everyone.....the tattoo that is about 5 inches below my arm pit has a mole that has turned black and slightly raised.  At first I thought this was a sharpie mark, but I am so surprised that it's looking like a "bad"  mole.  I am going to my family Doc in the next 2 weeks to check it out but now I'm thinkng that radiation might encourage skin cancer?  I certainly hope not but this mole has gotten black, irregular and raised in a matter of months.

Alotte - how are you feeling?  Are you done with radiation yet?  and are you able to continue with shingles.....let me know.

Nothing new to report here - just another week behind me - 18 down and 16 to go, which include 6 boosts.  at least that is the plan.  Have had some mild sunburn sensation in my armpit.  But it seems to go away by the next morning.  Felt a little tired yesterday and was glad to be having two days off for the weekend.  Interesting that the two ladies right ahead of me in the schedule are both doing the shorter Canadian protocol.  I wonder if that election will increase in the future?  Take  care everyone!  This too shall end.

Weird - I have a white line across the middle of all 10 of my fingernails.  I have to think that it happened when I started radiation or got my CT scan about 4 weeks ago.  Has anyone else seen this?

Yep, me too, one line for each taxotere treatment. Sharon did you have taxotere? It looks like where growth stopped and started. I have been showing them off, as proof that the treatments did their job. Mine are not shredding though, not yet anyway. I walked 3 miles for BC on Saturday with my whole right foot numb. Also wonder when the SE's will stop?? Ugh.

I am super itchy in a couple of spots on my chest. Aloe helps a little, but does anyone have any radiation-approved remedies? I was told NOT to scratch. Ha. 6 rads left then a "re-evaluation" whatever that means.

Shygal: Good idea to have a doctor look at your new mole. It may, hopefully, be something benign, like seborrheic keretosis. You can look that up on wikipedia. They are benign growths and can be easily removed if they bother you.

Cortizone cream helped me with itchiness. My rad doc recommended it.

I finish my last 4 boosts this week after a two week break due to bad skin burn. My skin no longer hurts (finally!) and I feel much better. I needed pain meds at night and sometimes during the day for about two weeks. After using the prescribed silver sufadiazine cream (looked like Noxema) on the active burn for a week or so until the open burns were healed, aquaphor or some really thick moisturizer has felt best on my extremely dry, peeling skin. 

I'm still feeling the fatigue. Looking forward to feeling more like my old self again soon. 

For my itchy rash, I tried 1% hydrocortizone OTC but it worked only briefly. A friend recommended I get a prescription for stronger hydrocortizone, and I found it lasts a lot longer. Has anyone used triamcinolone or desoximetasone (a synthetic hydrocortizone) for radiation rash? I read on another board that it cured the radiation rash and was thinking about asking for a prescription.

DONE!!! Oh this feels good!  I'll enjoy my wine tonight DMS, and maybe do nothing at all all day long tomorrow.    My present is a new iMac...sort of a necessity as my PC crashed a week ago and is beyond repair.  It won't boot at all, and hard drive appears to be wiped clean!  So l had a play day in the Apple store Saturday and came home with this slick new system.  Now to learn all the ins and outs after decades on a PC.

My marker stayed on until today, but I was ultra careful and tried not to get it wet at all over the weekend.  I for sure did not want to wreck anything for today!  How is your skin looking DMS?  I think we both have been extraordinarily lucky with this. For the first time today my skin looks as if it might be getting ready for a dry peel, but it's all intact.  I feel for you all that are having such issues.  

All in all, it was not too bad an experience, but from reading most others experiences, I know I was so lucky.  I thought 6 weeks would be an eternity but the time flew by.  Tiredness hit in the afternoon, so morning was my time to get everything done from housework to exercise...LOL...which is maybe why I was so tired in the afternoon.  

Anyway, it''s over and I'm wishing everyone else well, hoping those with skin issue are OK and tiredness dissipates as the end comes into sight for everyone.  Best of wishes ... it really does end! 

Saw my rad onc today and he said if my skin gets worse we will have to take a break.  He did not recommend anything to use other than the cream he has given me which really does not seem to do a thing.  It is named Biafine.  Anyone else use this.  I think I will try the coritzone tonight and see if that will help more.  It can't make it much worse.  Today was only treatment # 19 so I need my skin to hold out longer than this so I can have 11 more treaments and 4 boosts.  Thanks for being there and hope all are well.

Congrats to all who have finished or are finishing up with rads.  My energy level is doing okay so far.

Boca thanks for the info.   I do have aquafor that I can use but I am also having the itchy bumps so I thought the coritzone might help with that.  I am using both tonight.  We'll see if it helps.   LOL, Ginny

I talked to the rad nurse today. She said that those of us with no breast (no recon) often have more skin problems because we have no tissue as protection....just skin stretched pretty tight. I had no idea. Just one more thing I didn't know about before. I asked if it would have been easier if I had have tried the expander route and she said it might have. Hmmmm......wonder if I would have tried recon if I had known this? Too late for expanders now. Oh, well, I really didn't want extra surgery and pain with expansion. Guess I got more pain with radiation. No easy way out with b.c. treatment! I'm still trying to be happy with the breastless option with microbead forms. I'm hoping I will feel so good to be healthy again I will quit thinking about it. I really only think about it when I lie in bed at night.

I also talked more to the nurse about my continuing very sore thumb joints. She said it is a side effect of menopause which my chemo put me into and that sore joints and knees are often a problem. She suggested Advil.

Congrats to everyone who is DONE!

Hey Dawn - we sound like we are on the same schedule.  I am 19 down and 15 to go.  I also started having some shooting pains in my breast this weekend and a lot of them yesterday.  Nothing that is not manageable - just a sudden surprise from the non-eventfulness of this treatment so far.

Regarding white lines across my nails - I did not have taxotere.  I had AC chemo but that ended about 3 months ago - and surgery that was two months ago. Based on my very scientific analysis - these white lines must have appeared about 4 weeks ago when I started radiation.  But it could be something else.  Oh well.  If that's the worst I am OK with it.  Like so many things involved with this - it is just interesting and creepy at the same time.  You have to wonder what is going on inside your body that causes these things to happen.

Best to all.