May 2011 Radiation

Done on the 14th of June, and had  no problems during rads, but now feel tired.  The breast is ok, just this damn feeling of WOW who sucked the life out of me.......................other then that I'm ok.................not even sore, not one bit and I had whole breast, with 8 boosts............36 total.  Suppose to start Femara and I am avoiding that like the Plague...................still sits on the countertop calling my name..........................haven't taken it yet, and am not sure I even will.................thinking of taking my chances without it.............I know what yur thinking......................, just don't want the bullshit of the SE.

All: Thanks for the votes of courage. It's my left breast that's being treated. I did a little googling and the only thing I can come up with is costochondritis. It's a side effect I hadn't heard of.  Still stuggling to fully expand my lungs, but thankfully the elephant has stepped off my chest.  Of course, they hit me with mega-drugs to stop the pain the other night....I'm on the short course, the "Canadian course" --4 1/2 weeks, and I wonder if the extra radiation they give me just caught up with me.  Hate hate hate feeling weak.  Think I have only one more full breast tx and then the boosts. 

Ducky, I feel your pain. It's the lethargy, the exhaustion...I could sleep for a month.

Hi everyone.  I'm 11 days out of my last rad treatment.  The fatigue hit me really hard the few days after my last rad.  My skin opened under my arm with the boosts, but the under skin was already new - I didn't look like I had burned then blistered, just dark skin "rolling" off.  Now I look like someone with a pigment disorder - whole breast, underneath, and underarm.  The new skin is really baby pink, the peeling of and around the nipple was the most uncomfortable.

I see my RO on July 14 for follow up.  I will be asking about delayed SE.  I know of pneumotitis that can come on 3 months later.... 

charcon64~ I really feel uneducated after reading your post.  I just finished radiation.  I had radiation whole breast, super clav and underarm for lymph nodes.  I am really large breasted which my MO and RO anticipated the worst.  I faired really well, not sure if this is the same radiation you are looking at. 

I had a seroma right away in the "missing" tissue from my partial mastectomy, but we left it alone and it started to resolve itself. The fatigue was the worst side effect for me.  The last week of rads my skin opened, but the new skin had already begun growing underneath.

My MO scheduled an appt toward the end of rads anticipating having to step in and stop if side effects were bad. She was really surprised and asked what I did.  I told her exactly what the RO asked me to do - only use creams he gave me, dry skin all the way after showers, keep the skin under breast dry etc. 

Hope this helps. 

(((Rohanna)))...You can finish this....for some reason the first two weeks were the most emotional for me....I think I've read that is usually the way it is for most women.  Hang in there.

Char, I am having axilla radiation right now, just 4 days left.  I'm red under the arm (but that is from bolus)...but so far so good....I'm not sure why your Drs are so freaked out about rads for you....open skin heals...cancer well...not so much.  And you may not even blister...

OH Rohanna ****HUGS**** - I feel your pain in more ways than you know...I lost my father 37 years ago to pancreatic cancer....I was down and crying all day yesterday.... I agree with both ladies above though... the first two weeks are very emotional... accept where you are and know with lots of creams (Xclair is my favorite) and love from us ladies - you will make it - REMEMBER - ONE STEP AT A TIME AND ONE DAY AT A TIME - WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS TOGETHER!!! I only have 3 weeks left but once you hit the halfway point it seems to get better.. Friday was my half way point.. and I do feel better... Love you Girl!!!!

Char - I too am getting lymph nodes radiated - just a little tan/grey looking after 3 weeks. I'm having a little trouble with the muscles in my are but no lymphedema - they are watching me close... If I had a choice again, I would still do radiation.

chardon64 - In weighing the opinions of various doctors, I would follow the advice of my oncologists over that of my primary doctor. They're the experts who work with cancer patients all day every day while your primary only sees a small portion of cancer patients, and those with treatment SEs are more likely than those without to be consulting their primary during treatment.

I think if you poll those us who have shared our radiation experiences on this thread, while we've had our ups and downs, everyone would agree that given the choice, they would do it again. Are you comfortable in your RO/MO? Are they at a cancer center with the resources to be using the latest technology and treatments? 

rohanna - hang in there. I was very emotional during rads too, and it lingered after I finished. When there was a little confusion at the pharmacy when I was picking up (a totally non-cancer related) Rx, it brought me to tears. Most of the time, I felt like all my nerves were on the outside of my skin (figuratively/emotionally, not literally). I reminded myself that was my state for the duration. Like ftblmom3, I didn't ask myself to be superwoman, just follow the docs orders and get through it. And I did. And I'm OK.

woot woot tonlee, i still have 15  but i did win $2 today

Angel,

I do know what you're talking about.  Even if all the cancer is gone, it's not over.  It's NEVER over. 

Most people go through life and never brush up against death until the end.  If they do happen to get up close and personal, it is usually something they remember and talk about for the rest of their lives because that one instance was so traumatic/life changing/etc.

At this point in our tx, we get daily, sometimes hourly, reminders of our mortality.  And it sucks. 

I interviewed a psychotherapist once who talked about how powerful visualization can be.  How you can tell what is up front and center in your life by doing the following:

Close your eyes.

Think about your cancer, give it a form.  (I give it the Wal-Mart smiley face, minus the facial features and in its place a big "C").

Where is it in your mind's eye?  Front and center?

How big is it?

(Answering these questions tells the therapist a lot about how big the issue/person is to you.  And most people say it (the problem, the person, etc) is front and center and big.  But for this, it's not that important, we KNOW cancer is front and center.)

So the way to get some of your mojo back is to "minimize" it.  Sure it still wants your life, but you don't have to make it front and center, you don't have to honor it with that special center stage place in your consciousness. 

So close your eyes, visualize it ...big, front/center, then mentally shrink it....and move it off to the side...do this every time it starts to take over your life....(this also works for people in your life that you find annoying ~just sayin

Ok, it may sound corny, but it really has helped me keep things in perspective.  AND not to become one of those women who allows cancer to consume her life (some days harder than others!)

I call it the Scarlett O'Hara approach...she was gonna think about it, but she survived today and thought about it tomorrow!  So she literally shrank the problem, tossed it to the side, and gave center stage to something she wanted/liked/needed to focus on...

That's all I got.

Making the Happy Dance  I'm done...done!!

I had 32 rads, including 5 boost and I have to say this was much, much easier than chemo. My nipple was very sore at the end, but then I had the boost on my underarm so the breast wasn't treated.

Now on to Arimidex  for 5 years and Herceptin to the end of the year....

slcst12-i actually thought the boosts were easier than the whole breast (i did mine in the middle because the rest of my lovely breast wasn't fairing so well) but mine is on top closer to my underarm so i got to lay on a  more padded thing AND got a pillow!! LOL

CONGRATS In Two Places!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have 6 treatments left, but today RO says she thinks i should just do 4 this week, have a 3 day break and since i have two next week anyway, then i will have three. I just want to get done!!! My red swollen boob just does not like this radiation!!!

Angel : I am also so tired of people saying how great I look... If only they all could be in my body for a day - maybe they would stop saying that!!!

TonLee: thanks for the visualization exercise - my councelor didn't talk about doing that - I might mention that one to her!

I hit a milestone today gals!! I went into rad treatment WITHOUT my nurse escort to talk me through the rads!!!! The techs just blared the Christian music and I focused on the music...did it myself today... The tendonitis in the arm is bad enough today the tech had to lift my arm into the mold and take it out for me after... but I did it.... I'm on the downhill run now!!! 15/28..We all can do this!!! 

Well I'm done today.  Skin is very dark but fortunately not painful.  All in all, pretty doable, though I find myself pretty tired.  Looking forward to some recovery time before starting tamoxifen, and making a decision about an oopherectomy sometime this year.  

Thanks to EVERYONE for all the support.  This is a wonderful group of women, wish it were something a lot more fun than BC than brought us together.   

Gabby,

since no one else is thinking about it, I need to be doing double-duty to carry the worry weight of these slackers.

I just had to lol at that.....it is so true.  My Onc acts like he doesn't know me now (and I am still taking Herceptin!!)...he doesn't order blood tests (tells me to go see my primary Dr) and my RO sees me for the last time Thurs...not a single person or direction about who and when I see someone next.  They are all "hands off" now and tell me to see my primary...who I've never even met and can never get in to see.

This is how I deal with the whole cancer issue.  I didn't do anything to get cancer.  I can't do anything to keep it from coming back, or spreading.  It is what it is, and all worrying does is rob me of the here and now. 

I remember what it was like before I found the lump, when cancer was a foreign concept to my own health....and how I took that for granted, worrying over silly little physical flaws or whatever.  Now I can look back and see how much time I wasted on that stuff.....so, having learned that, I refuse to let what might happen rob the now.

I don't want to have mets and look back to now and think...shesh!  All that worrying and it came anyway....I shoulda just enjoyed NED while I had it.

Do I still worry about mets?  About all the scans and tests I haven't had?  YES!  But for me it comes down to an only occasionally type thing and locking it away, refusing to look/think about that TODAY, right this minute....I'll think about it tomorrow....and if I'm lucky....a lifetime full of tomorrows will come and go and I'll die without ever having to take it out of the box. 

Breast Cancer isn't the worst thing that's ever happened in my life.  But I can clearly see those other things helped teach me to put things away and just live...unlike modern psycho-babble..I believe some things are never meant to see the light of day.....once "active" BC treatment is over, I don't plan on cracking the lid of the breast cancer box again until I am forced to do it (like follow-ups), and then it will be a contest to see how much of it I can keep contained until the lid is back firmly in place.

That all probably sounds a little nutty....but it's worked a lifetime for me....and I'm not in the ranks of the "walking wounded."  That legion of humanity allowing their past/trauma to control their now, their future.  I recognize it, but minimize it.

Ok....sorry.....hubby is out of town this week so I actually have two minutes to think...lol

Congrats to Lisa and N2Places!!  WOO HOO!!

Lisa, you may want to join our April May Tamox thread....I found the bottle o'tamox one too long and laborious to navigate....of course you might think it's easy...

chardon - I had a BMX in December and and SNB that turned up two + nodes.  I did 8 rounds of dose dense chemo AC followed by Taxol and am now in the midst of radiation.  I will be completing 28 regular treatments (whole breast, supraclavicle and axillary nodes) and then 8 boosts to the MX scar line.  I am 19 treatments in and I have to say I doing pretty well.  I apply 100% aloe vera gel several times a day.  I am slightly tender in the arm pit area, but no blisters, peeling or skin discoloration. I think every women's body responds to each tx differently.  There was a new study released last week about the benefits of node radiation that may help you in making your decision. 

Tammy