July 2011 rads

Hey Yorelh - I went for a follow-up with Rad Onc last week and I was 3 weeks out exactly, he thought my skin looked great and told me to continue using the therapy lotion and that it would get better quicker.  However I had already stopped peeling, so maybe you were a bit more burned than I was, so maybe give it a couple more weeks.  I had a lumpectomy and I saw the breast surgeon on yesterday who assured me that where my breast looks a little indented and pretty ugly and is hard - she assures me that the tissue will soften up and look much more normal as time goes on, she didn't give any time frame but...

Remembering what my breast looked like at the end of Rads and now almost 4 weeks later, it will stop peeling and be better!!

pekjug3 - Me too, I'm gonna need to take something ahead of time.  I was told to schedule one for the lumpectomy breast for October (6mos from diagnostic mamm confirming malignacy).  I am so not looking forward to this - I assume they will be gentle, not like the diagnostic one when they're mashing and smashing like crazy!!

Blessings!

Yorelh, yeah, the peeling finally does stop. After about a month, at least for me. I never made it to the boosts -- they let me stop when 25/33 left me with second degree burns and horrible blisters.

Mimidi-

 I still lerk around this website.  I am glad to hear you are doing fine.  I am ok as well. I was taken off my herceptin early as my heart function had decreased too much. I had my port out 2 weeks ago, which was the sign I was done with treatment. I see the cardiologist again next week to check on my heart function.  I am hoping that it has increased and that I might get taken off the heart meds I was put on to help it.  I am beginnig to run and play soccer again.  Starting to think about reconstruction in the early fall. Life returns to normal.  I have slight skin discoloration on my irradiated side.  And I will admit that it hurt a little to chest trap the soccer ball on that side.  I have an occasional LE flare up but nothing massage and compression garments don't fix.  Just really happy to be on the other side.  

Hope everyone else is well

Good to hear from ya'll. 

Sometimes I am a basket case emotionally too. I have not had too much time to dwell only myself since January.   Hubby went from peritioneal dialysis to hemo-dialysis.  He also had to have his toes amputated and a bypass done on his leg because of diabetes.  He had to have four surgeries.  Things are going well with him now.  Looks like things are healing nicely.. His doctors are proud of his progress.  Thank goodness he is able to walk with a walker.  I looking forward to him graduating to a cane.

 Summer has hit here in southeast Alabama and it is hot.  Heaven only knows what June, July, and August will bring.

Hi Ladies, just checking in.  Glad to hear everyone is hanging in there - I am doing pretty good also.  After the scare with my 6mos mammogram, must admit I'm not looking forward to the 1-yr mammo in May.  But, I had 3 follow-up appts today (breast surgeon, radiation oncologist and oncologist) and they were all pretty much on the same page and did very thorough exams of both breasts, so that has made me a little less anxious about May.

I am tolerating the Tamoxifen well; however the Zoladex injection produces hot flashes for me. The hot flashes had been quite tolerable until the last couple of weeks ---- I live in the Midwest and as you probably know, we are now experiencing SUMMER IN MARCH!!!! (82 degrees today, now that's what I call MARCH MADNESS), so that concerns me that the real summer may not be as bearable...

The oncologist says that if the hot flashes get too bad she can give me something -- I just don't want to take yet another drug, so we'll see. 

Mimidi - sorry to hear of your husbands illness, glad that he's doing much better!!

Prayers of healing and blessings to All