They want more tattoos? Where/how many did u get?

I have four tattoo dots and the fourth one was done on the first day of rads. My first three were exactly where you describe yours and the fourth is on my left breast. You'll also get an x ray before the first treatment, and I at least got an x ray every Monday during rads (also saw my radiology oncologist then too). That's to make sure everything remains lined up.

Really sorry about your experiences, that has to make an already difficult situation that much harder.

I don't know for sure why the fourth tattoo is done the day of the first radiation treatment but I suspect it's so that tattoo is exactly midline (pretty sure that's what they said it was for). On me, it's both the biggest and the one I felt the most. The one under my right armpit is nearly invisible and even the rad crew had a hard time finding for my treatments. The one on my breast bone (true center of mass for me) is small but I can see it, and also the one under my left armpit. But that fourth one is super easy to see.

All in all, I'm glad they're visible because I sure wanted the rads crew to get everything lined up perfectly.

I found this article from the Mayo Clinic helpful when trying to explain the radiation treatments to my family and friends, maybe it will be useful to you too?

I had three dots the week before rads started, then another mapping for boosts a little more than halfway into rads for the boosts, also. Turns out they didn't give me boosts because it would have messed things up even more than they were (and I only had a lumpectomy for a 2cm tumor).

As far as the rushing part, this was my complaint. I had a literal temper tantrum when they gave me my schedule. I worked 8-12, had a one hour drive and I needed rads to be scheduled at 1:00 to make it home by 2:00, missing traffic (hospital is an hour away). This was the only time that would work and I tried for two months to get them to schedule it, or at least to know when to schedule it. The nurse comes back with my schedule. They wanted me to come in at 3:45. This would have made my day awake at 7 am, work, dink around for three hours, rads, two hour drive home in traffic, and home by 6 pm. Every fricking day. For a patient that underwent chemo and surgeries. I had a two year old temper tantrum (I was hopped up on Valium because I was scared of the tattoo pain during mapping) and yelled at the nurse (in the waiting room, with patients) for jerking me around. I told her I wasn't coming back if this was how it was going to go. Apparently I went to leave when she said they'd try to figure something out. She came back 5 minutes later, and, wow, they could get me in at 12:45. Works for me.

During heavy duty chemo, two surgeries, more chemo and rads, rads sucked the most. It was like they were bored with cancer by then. Excuse me, I'm a wee bit bored with it too!