Radiation Day 1 of 20

The day finally arrived for my actual radiation treatments to start. To say that I was apprehensive feels like a huge understatement! I left from work to go to my treatment and I was pretty freaking scared. I don’t know why radiation is scarier to me than the chemotherapy, but to each his own! I also decided to use one of my photographs taken from my one of my liquid crystals lab during my undergraduate degree for this blog post. I know I have a picture from my x-ray diffraction lab, but I couldn’t find it. Radiation therapy makes me think of my materials science labs! I just wish I wasn’t the object in this scenario!

Lead up to radiation

Aside from my planning days there wasn’t really a whole lot to do to prepare for radiation therapy. Although I had a bit of a meltdown the day before. Originally, they only set my very first treatment at my planning appointment. They said that we would make the rest of them when I showed up for my first treatment. Well, on Monday I received all of these notifications that appointments were made and realized it was all of my radiation treatments! The good thing was that it was really convenient that I didn’t have to do much and they were all made for me. The problem was that despite stating a preference for either early morning or late afternoon, they scheduled all of my appointments for 11 AM. I figured that whoever made the appointments maybe wasn’t aware of my preference and so I figured I would call to ask.

When I called I spoke with the scheduling nurse who laughed at me and said “Well Ms. McWilliams, someone has to be in the middle of the day!” I’m sure they didn’t mean to be like that, but it really just set me off. I was prepared that they were going to tell me that was the only time slot available and I would have been fine with it. The honest truth is that what was so upsetting to me was that they laughed at me. This cancer diagnosis has upended my life. Maybe not to the same extent as others, but for a person who generally enjoys and exerts a fair amount of control over my life, this whole experience has been a big lesson in not having control. First, I had something growing in my body that I’ve made many life choices to attempt to avoid. Then I had some chunks cut out of my body. Then I had toxins put in my body. And now I am exposing my body to radiation. I had to let all of that be done to me to save my life. And now, when I’m just trying to ask for some little amount of control in my life, someone laughs at me. Like “oh, what a silly little person!” It was very hurtful and upsetting.

In complete fairness, they did reschedule all of my appointments and gave me ones at the end of the day that worked better for my schedule. I do very much appreciate that. And I know the person didn’t mean to be hurtful – everyone there is very kind and considerate. But I would just hope they don’t repeat that to anyone else or try to avoid doing that in the future.

Radiation day

Honestly, the whole thing was pretty uneventful. Well… kinda. I definitely cried in the changing room. After I changed into my hospital gowns and sat in the chair to wait, I just started crying. I could feel the tears quite easily forming and falling down my cheeks. I partly wonder if that’s a bit of a side effect from my Zoladex shots. When I cry I make so many tears! The staff was very kind and told me that it was going to be super easy. They reassured me that it was totally normal to be scared, but promised that when it was all over I would see how easy it was and it’d be easier the next time.

They were really impressed with my ability to so effortlessly climb onto the table. Ha! That’s probably because most of the patients tend to be on the older side. Then, they commented for the second time how flat my back is when I lay down. I think I’m going to have to ask about that if they say it again. I’m curious to know what they mean by it and what it means that other people don’t lay so flat.

Next, I needed to get lined up. I still have my blue lines and stickers on, so they used that to do an initial line up of the machine. They moved the table around a bit and sometimes pushed on me to get me into position. I have no idea how that helped, because it honestly felt like I was just rolling back into my original spot. They seemed happy with the readjustment though. Before we started the actual treatment they did some quick x-rays to make sure everything was in alignment internally as well.

Now it was showtime! They asked me what music I wanted, but I told them I didn’t really have a preference today. I was too much in a mood to think of some songs to play. I’m receiving my treatment from a Varian TrueBeam machine. It has a big “head” where the radiation beam comes out and then these little “flaps” that deploy. The whole thing took less than 10 minutes probably. That including getting on the table, getting set up, taking the X-rays for positioning, doing the treatment and then wrapping up. Before I got off the table, but after I finished my treatments, they needed to put some more markings on me. I got some more blue markers and some more stickers to boot. The technician actually drew a long line from my armpit down my side and it tickled so much!

After I was done, I met with my Radiation Oncologist, Dr. Okoye. I will meet with him every Tuesday to check in. Today I covered my skin care while I am receiving radiation. Apparently it is super important to start treating my skin immediately to try and avoid the skin side effects. Most people develop skin redness, dryness, itchiness, etc. A few people get more extreme side effects that are the same, but it just feels worse and can feel painful. An even smaller subset of individuals get peeling and/or sores. And really unlucky people get what is called “moist reaction.” Anything with “moist” sounds like it’s going to be gross. Basically, your skin sloughs off! Then I need to receive some special kind of care. We are just going to pretend that’s not going to happen to me since it most likely will not.

Most people are told to put on Aquafor twice a day. However, you cannot put it on 4 hours prior to treatment because it will magnify the effect of the radiation which is a bad thing. Instead, Dr. Okoye asked me if I wanted to try this new stuff called Strata XRT. Unlike Aquafor, or similar prescription products like X-Derm, Strata XRT forms a silicone coating on the skin that is more durable and lasting than the other options. I’m supposed to apply it at least once a day or twice if I wish. Unlike the Aquafor, it does not have an enhancing effect with the therapy. I’ve looked up some papers and it sounds like objectively patients do better using it. As a person who at least studied materials science engineering, I’m willing to trust it and give it a try.

I’m going to try to post at least a small post every day from each radiation treatment. It’ll probably get fairly repetitive after awhile! But I would really like to preserve my experience as much as possible. Hopefully tomorrow there will be much less fear and no tears!