Starting radiation September 2017

I will be joining you all soon. Tomorrow is my initial consultation with my radiation oncologist and I know, radiation will be in September!

Hi... Looks like I'll be joining you. Thank you, Mari for telling me about this group. I've done 4 AC and 3 dd taxotere. My last chemo is Aug 30. My mapping is Sept 11 and rads will be end of September. I'm 43 years old. This is my second time with BC. I was dx in 2011 (36yo) with DCIS and had BMX. I was told 1-3% chance of getting BC again... lucky me. I felt a lump Feb 2017 with dx IDC stage 2A (no nodal involvement). I've done chemo all summer and had great support from Lovepugs!

Glad I have this group and not doing this alone. I'm very nervous.

L

Sisters, if you ever get something called Bolus which gets wrapped around the side of your torso under your arm, try it cold. Rad techs keep it in a warmer usually. I hated it far more than collarbone area zapping. Techs asked me whether I want it cold. Not warming it made a huge diff for me.

Mimi

Hope things good today Kimmie409! I see mine on Thursday for simulation.

Thanks Shelabela! All went well today! I like my RO. Very knowledgeable and talked over options with me. I feel alot more comfortable now, not as nervous. I do my simulation on Tuesday next week. Good luck to you on Thursday! We 've got this!

Tray a nursing bra. They're soft, comfortable and have additional support. Right after surgery they were my salvation. Since then I've lost 15 lbs and unfortunately, they are too large now.

Good morning ladies! Today will be my 1st day of radiation, will do 30 days with 1 boost. Im so happy my appointments will be in morning, so I can take my kids to school and then go to treatment. Keep the updates coming as you start, we are here to support eachother!

Hi Spikar,

Welcome to the group. I'm glad to hear your surgery went well, and will keep my fingers crossed for clean margins for you!

Chemo and radiation are given to prevent different things. The purpose of chemo is to prevent distant metastasis - since the drugs are given intravenously, they can attack cancer cells anywhere in the body. Did your surgeon order an oncotype or mammaprint test for you? Those are used to determine whether node negative cancers should be treated with chemo.

Radiation is used to prevent local recurrence. It will only be targeted at the breast that had the cancer, and is intended to kill any stray cancer cells that may have been missed in surgery. I was concerned about radiation increasing my chances of a new primary cancer because my family has a history of both lung cancer and skin cancer, and since I have to have radiation on both sides of my chest, my lungs will get radiated a little. My radiation oncologist assured me that the chances of radiation causing a new primary cancer were much lower than my chances of a BC recurrence if I opted out - the benefits in my case far outweigh the risks. There is no risk of radiation causing distant cancers - ie. you can't get brain cancer from radiation to the breast.

Only you can decide what is best for you. I know that there are threads in this forum about patients who opted out of radiation. Here is one, but you may also want to use the search function (in the menu bar on the top left) and search for something like "refused radiation".

Spikar,

Have you had a consultation with a Radiation Oncologist yet? If you haven't, schedule one, they will go over all of your options, answer your questions and explain everything to you in detail. If you are looking for an option that just targets the specific area of where the cancer is/was, there is Brachytherapy. It's a newer form of radiation therapy. Not everyone is a good candidate for it, but you should definitely ask them about it and see if they do it where you live.

Hello everyone, I'm joining this group since my insurance authorization just came in with an approval for me to have brachytherapy in a few weeks. Although it will be hard traveling out of state by myself for treatment, I'm glad it will be over fairly quickly (in the scheme of things.) Hotel is reserved, now I need to start on the mountain of paperwork and figure out what I need to take, buy, etc...

Good luck to all of us!

I hear you about the waiting game. I have decided to delay for 2 weeks so my incision can completely heal. Just don't feel healed yet. Also still arguing with insurance about Proton therapy. I think we almost got it approved.

wish me luck!

Sisters,

Just chiming in because I am done w 24 out of 30 seasions of rads. 26 thru 30 is boosts.

Fatigue wise, rad fatigue is no where near chemo fatigue in terms of intensity. Unpredictable though as to when it would come over. I have had short and suddden sleep coming over lasted about 3 min each time every week.

Skin care - key is letting the heat out. Personally no bra no top inside ACd home was the best followed by cool aloe gel dabbing. I keep multiple bottles of aloe in my fridge. Soak 2 by 2 gauzed pads to cover the area. I only used something else such as acquaphor about 5 times so far.

Wish you speedy recovery and go on!

I had my mapping session and tattoos last week. I have a rehearsal day tomorrow followed by 16 radiation treatments. My primary concerns are:

• I have a badly encapsulated shoulder and lymphedema on the treatment side. Even with the positioning modification the RO was willing to make, it's going to be very uncomfortable.
• I had breast reduction surgery in July and worry that may make my skin more vulnerable to problems.

Good luck to all of us!

Lyn

hi all, I am starting radiation in September as well. Like radmonkey I had DCIS in 2014 with a bilateral mastectomy. I felt a lump in may and am now being treated for triple positive recurrence. Finishing chemo next week then with herceptin for a year. Have my simulation and mapping appointment in 2 weeks with a 6 week course of 30 treatments planned. The RO nurse recommended getting aloe Vera spray and keeping it in the fridge. She said to make sure it was 100% pure aloe and said spritzing with it can help a lot with any itching or burning of the skin. I found some on amazon that was reasonably priced. Glad to be finishing chemo but nervous for this Next step.

Just got home from my first radiation. All went fine except my arm fell asleep from holding it in the same position so long, and since that's the side that's at risk for lymphedema I'm feeling paranoid about it.

On a side note, the scheduling is really getting on my nerves. It took several days to get in contact with someone to get the ball rolling, and then she called me back 2 days later day to change my first day from yesterday to today, changed today's time from 7am to 6:30pm, and said tomorrow's session is at 7 am. Then when I finished today, the tech said he'd see me tomorrow at 3:00. He double checked when I said it should be 7 and I'm scheduled for 3. I'm working throughout rads so if I can't gave the same time every day I should at least know the times in advance. Everything has been going so smoothly until now so I don't want to complain at the first hiccup but this is the sort of thing that annoys me on a good day.