Fall 2013 Rads

Hello Batcatlady, welcome back. As for your question with the comparison of chemo fatigue vs. rads fatigue, for me at least, chemo is far, far, far worse. We both have had T/C and as I remember from your posting on the chemo boards, you had even more intense reactions than I.

But the side effects for rads for me have been very minimal. Just started having minor aches in the boob being radiated, some skin darkening ( under my arm) and some fatigue late afternoon which is taken care of by a brief rest. Chemo fatigue by contrast was so bad sometimes I need two or three extra hours of sleep a day to barely function. And that nasty achy feeling in my joints is gone!!! And the chemo taste yay! And my hair is growing back!!

Anyway, PM me anytime if you have questions. And good luck!

Bluebird I am so sorry. Sigh the comment about Chernobyl victims really got to me. I hope that you might be considering second opinions at this point. I hate what has happened to you. Gentle hugs, and please try to have a restful Thanksgiving.

Delirium Pie, congrats for finishing! And wyo, congrats for being so close to the end! So nice of you to bring your ROs office a basket. I brought my techs some TJs choc covered almonds the other day. I've got choc truffles from Costco and other TJ stuff I'll make into a basket to give to them my last day.

PRB, the decision is your choice of course but please don't let your fears prevent you from doing this. Rads are really very easy and fast to get through and the SEs are so minimal for the vast majority. Particularly when compared to rad tx for other cancers. We are all here, hanging on as best we can, trying to save our lives. I'm sure you can do it too. Pretty soon this will be a bump in the road in the rear view mirror and we can all get on to living the best we can!

Happy Thanksgiving (or Thanksgivakah!) everyone! I go in today for 23 of 33 today, only 10 left!

23 of 33 done today. My husband drove me in since he's not working today and felt he couldn't lay in bed while I had to get up and out by 6:20am! Then he treated me to breakfast.

Batcat - I did 5 months of chemo, finished Sept 5. For me the rads are way more fatiguing. I think part of it is because I have to be up by 5:45 since I made my appt for 7:20 so I don't interrupt my work schedule and I do have an hour drive in nasty traffic. But I'm in bed by 9 almost every night and I sleep well. So long as I am physically moving or doing something other than work I'm pretty ok but as soon as I sit down, Wham! I hit a wall. So needless to say sitting at my computer all day trying to work is a bit difficult. Though now I'm at the point with only two weeks to go I can see the end and if I don't accomplish much work wise, so be it. As my husband says, it's all about me right now.

Can't wait for 12/12 when I'll to be totally done with all this cancer crap. Well, except for the Arimidex.... (fingers crossed!) What a year it's been!

Thanks Libra. Even if I do the rads...now we're heading into the Holidays. I wonder if the delays make the radiation less effective. It's always something.

PRB, below are my thoughts on your concerns. For whatever it is worth.....

1) Thyroid problems: I already have Hashimoto's and don't need more problems there. Check with your radiologist. It doesn't look to me that you would be getting radiation in the supraclavicle area and if that is true, you should not have to worry about your thyroid being impacted. If they want to radiate that area, find out why.

2) Fatigue: With my existing thyroid problems, this could get ugly...and I've read some women never fully recover. Most women do not have debilitating fatigue. Yes it can happen and if it does, you will have to put your health and well being first by resting. But it is unlikely that you will have a big problem with that due to radiation.

3) Lymphedema: I have a mild case of lympedema and cording from the lumpectomy. Will it get worse with rads? If you are not getting radiation in the axilla region, your risk of having more problems with lymphadema is very small. You had negative nodes, so there should be no reason for your underarm area to be radiated.

4) Possible lung issues/infections: I have had pnemonia in the past and am now super sensitive to 'smells' and caustic things...to the point they make my lungs hurt if I am in an area that has a strong odor (like glue). This one really scares me. Check with your radiologist. I did my radiation in the prone position to reduce exposure to the lungs. Not everyone is a candidate...ask!

5) I had endometrial cancer 3 years ago. All that was required was surgery, but I worry that excess radiation will just increase my chances for another cancer. I feel like I have a target on my back. I'm so sorry that you have had to deal with this twice and that you had a bad experience with your doctors......but you are a smart lady and when you had your previous cancer, you made good choices and you will do that again with this. You are fortunate that you were able to have a lumpectomy. That surgical choice means radiation unless you are over age 70, because that is the standard of care. You can skip radiation, but in my humble opinion, you may be opting out of the very treatment that means you can take that target off your back and be happy.

We love you and wish the best for you.

MsP

Thank you all again. I am so miserable these days....and have decided to go visit my sister for Thanksgiving (3 hour drive into the winter wonderland..ugh). I really need to get out of my house and out of my 'funk'. We will play games and laugh and maybe I will be able to forget about all of this for a bit. Not much of a fan of traveling on the busiest day of the year, but it is what it is.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Pat

Hi Kruise! We missed you. My hair is still growing and I blow it dry every day hoping that soon I will look like you! I did have bed head this morning, first time. LOL

My family's traditional feast includes:

Turkey, Bread stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, asparagus, fruit salad and for dessert, pumpkin pie. I hope you enjoy your feast and have all the blessings of the holiday.

Love, MsP

HI Pat, I too agonized about the decision to have radiation. In my own case, I think that the fact that I had annual mammograms for 35 years (first breast lump at age 23) could have been a contributing factor to my getting cancer. Radiation scares the hell out of me. My dad had radiation for prostate cancer, and some years later got bladder cancer, probably as a result of the radiation. In my case, I had an aggressive cancer with a positive node, so I knew I had to treat it aggressively. so, I put on my big girl panties and am doing radiation, after doing nasty chemo. I'm also an alternative medicine crunchy granola kind of person, so to go 100% mainstream western medicine was also against my typical way of dealing with health. If I had your diagnosis, Pat, Grade 1, no nodes, I might have had a harder time making the decision to get radiation. You have a good chance that your cancer will not recur, but there is a chance that it will, and radiation is supposed to lessen that chance. As far as bad long term negative side effects of radiation - my view was that I hope to be lucky to live long enough to see those long term effects. I think that if I didn't treat my cancer I'd be dead in a couple of years. That all said, I think that people like Kruise who have altered their diet and exercise program are taking charge, so Pat, if you do decide against rads and/or chemo down the road, there are still a LOT of things that you can do to prevent a recurrence. And Kruise, my mom used to make this great mashed sweet potato recipe - boil the sweet potatoes - mash - add butter, brown sugar and bourbon, top with marshmallows and bake. sinful.

Well, another one crosses the finish line!

I also just had my last radiation treatment today. I did 10 weeks in total! (30 each side, for a total of 60, but overlapped somewhere in the middle) Woohoo! I am finished! The whole staff applauded as I walked out after changing, while they played the graduation march in the background, (I think it is called pomp and circumstance?). I gave them all hugs and thanked them. They gave me a certificate and card, which they all signed and wrote some really nice things to me. And they gave me a goodie bag. Everyone there was always so kind and caring to me. I think I am going to miss them. (wipes away a tear). My RO was also very nice. Overall, I would have to say I couldn't have asked for a better experience going through this whole cancer thing.

Tomorrow I can truly celebrate, for I feel I have more to be thankful for this year than ever before. Even though this past 6 months or so has been quite an ordeal, I am thankful for all the good care and great people I have met along the way. I am thankful my side effects have been minimal. And most of all, I am thankful I am still here.

Love to all, and thank you for all your support. Couldn't have done it without you!

yummmmm - thanks for the suggestions MsP and McKatherine. I have told my sis-in-law that sounds like she has to do mashed potatoes!

MsP you make me laugh about the hair - mine is still growing away albeit slowly - but it looks like a hairstyle now as opposed to when it first started growing back. I used to have long dark hair and now I have short ash-blond hair! Lol. Good job I had lots of different wigs throughout treatment so people got used to my different guises.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

If any of you find yourselves traveling to NZ in the future - would love to have you stay.

Kia Kaha (stay strong) x

Congrats on finishing L2. I had 26 whole breast treatments, today had 1/8 boosts. Breast just pink, no broken skin. Weird thing is the other side of my back and under my breast is painful. The RO said from laying in the same position Mon-Fri and I also probably was lifting more with my unaffected side.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

L2grl - way to go. So happy for you! Hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow!

Symphony for a Hungry Old Man

I found this to use for my Thanksgiving wish that, whatever your present circumstances, you will be able to sing like a cardinal and not squawk like a blue jay. Its appropriate for what we are dealing with in our lives I think. Happy Thanksgiving!

The blue jay and the cardinal made their livings in the park at the outskirts of the old village. Every day, they sat in the low branches of the maple tree, near the wooden bridge where a small stream twisted back upon itself, gurgling over rocks that God had planted before memory to teach the stream patience. The morning sun transformed the little brook's crystalline surface into a dance floor for angels, their wings all a-shimmer as they pirouetted across the liquid ripples.

Summer days, people sat on the banks watching the angels dance and listening to the lullaby of the brook cascading over the rocks - and to the symphony of the birds. The blue jay and the cardinal made a comfortable living serenading the picnickers, who shared crusts from their meat pies; the young lovers, who tossed bits of bread and cheese; the rangers, who always had delicious seeds and bits of dried fruit; and the old man, who feasted them with chunks of the heavy black bread he made in his own oven.

Life was good for the birds, plump and content up on their branch. It was beyond their comprehension that upheavals in the world outside this little haven could someday impinge upon them. So they were slow to notice the changes when they occurred. How the picnickers stopped bringing pies, then stopped coming altogether. How the young lovers walked briskly, heads down and hands in pockets, without stopping to gaze at the brook or listen to the birds.

How more often than not, instead of bringing fruits to share, the rangers came foraging themselves, digging up roots and dropping them into the limp satchels at their sides. How thin the old man had become, and how his meager bread had lost the taste and the texture of the old days. The blue jay and the cardinal could now be seen with the ordinary birds, picking through the dead grass of the meadow and chasing bugs in the tree branches.

"What have I done to deserve this hunger," the blue jay squawked. "I sing as beautifully as ever, but they don't appreciate me anymore." His trills no longer drifted down from the tree branches; when the old man sat on his bench, the jay just screeched at him, vainly demanding food.

But every afternoon the cardinal took his place on the branch. He was scrawny now, and his once regal plumage showed scars from the daily struggle for food. But when he puffed his chest and cocked his head, he regained his ancient majesty. And then he filled the old man's ears with the symphony of his heart. For that brief eternity, the hungry little bird and the hungry old man danced with the angels across the stream, floating beyond time and care.

wyo - Thanks for the story - its a perfect reminder to me to start "singing" more.

We can't control what happens but we can control how we react. 

Rosecal 954 - I agree with everything wyo said - especially trying to help the tension through exercise, meditation and a support group.

You should ask at your cancer center where you will be getting radiation if they have an exercise group and a  psychologist you can meet with.  These psychologists can usully help quite quickly as they understand what you are going through.

To answer your specific question - I don't think that feeling stressed will make a big difference to your side effects but it will make a difference in how you perceive the side effects and in how well you cope with them.

Having a little pain or discomfort is not a big deal when you are calm and happy - it can be ignored and overcome - but dealing with the same level of pain can be overwhelming when you are scared and upset.

My first 2 weeks of radiation were much harder than the third week because of my fear and anxiety at the beginning.  Not to mention my control issues!

You deserve to feel as good as possible and its worth getting some professional help - even though it is natural to have a certain amount of stress and mental unease.  Your unwanted weight loss is perhaps a sign of distress beyond the usual.

Feel free to share here too. 

Hugs