Radiation Day 18 – Only 2 More To Go!

Obviously, I’m not writing this on the day of my 18th treatment. That was back on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, and we had a lot to do (or at least I did!). But before we get to that – how did my 18th treatment go? Very well!

This was my second boost treatment. Unfortunately, it didn’t exactly go faster for some reason. First, all of their drawings of the boost area had washed away between working out, showering and rubbing that gel on my skin. The marker just wasn’t permanent enough to stay on through all of that. Second, I was laying on the table for such a long time that my arm started to tremble. I almost spoke out to ask, “Hey! Are you guys going to do this or what?!”My neck isn’t in the most comfortable position to start with, but it was really starting to hurt. Then, with my right arm shaking, I was afraid that I might involuntarily jerk my arm in such a way that would force us to completely set up again. Luckily, right as I was about to give up, they did the treatment and it was over. Phew!

It’s been five days since my last “full” treatment and my skin seems to be doing pretty well. It’s definitely red, but nothing like what I feel like I’ve seen people share online. I wouldn’t even say it looks red like a sunburn. It’s just more red than my non-treated skin. I can also tell my skin is just a little bit more itchy than before. The good news is that these symptoms should peak in the next few days and then start to improve. Only the boost area around my incision site is still being treated, so only that skin could potentially get worse.

I will find out on Tuesday when my next follow-up appointment will be, but that won’t be until late in the week of December 12th or even the following week of December 19th. Either way, by that time my skin should be getting better and I should be getting my energy level back. Although, I can’t really complain too much about that either, because I think my energy level has been fairly decent. I will admit, it’ll be a bit disappointing if I wasn’t actually experiencing any unusual fatigue and this is just fatigue from running after a small child and crazy dog!

Thanksgiving festivities

We stayed in Baltimore for the holidays and we were able to celebrate with Sean’s family north of the city. It’s always fun to hang out with them because they have 3 young children and their youngest, a daughter, is 5 years old (same age as Maddie’s cousin, Zoe) and gets along well with Maddie. On Wednesday night, after treatment, I had to make some desserts for Thanksgiving. I made Sean’s favorite – Pumpkin Dream Cake. That’s a pumpkin cake with maple, cinnamon cream cheese icing. It is absolutely delicious and you can literally eat the icing on almost anything!

I also decided to try two new desserts. The first were these Brazilian chocolates called Brigadeiros. They were super simple to make and only required sweetened condensed milk, cocoa and butter. You also roll them in all different types of sprinkles to make them festive. They are like little fudge balls.

The second dessert was Coffee Toffee Bark. It consists of a base of club crackers (better than Saltines in my opinion) with pecans and walnuts. Then you pour a hot toffee mixture (butter and sugar) on top and bake for 10 minutes. Finally, you put four rows of chocolate morsels and butterscotch morsels when it comes out of the oven and cover with aluminum foil to melt those morsels. When they are nice and melted, you swirl them around to make them kind of pretty (I didn’t do a good job of that) and sprinkle with sea salt. Those were absolutely to die for!

We had a great time visiting with Sean’s family and Maddie ran around all night long! She must have burned enough energy for almost 3-4 days of activity. She ran around with the kids, ate a bit of dinner and enjoyed some pumpkin cake. She probably didn’t eat enough to compensate for all of her activity though. She also helped to paint some nails and also had her nails painted! It was quite an eventful night. Also, they made a fried turkey, which was my first time trying that, and it was so juicy and delicious. I would seriously think about doing that in the future. Plus, it only takes about 45 minutes!

This weekend we also picked out our Christmas tree and put the lights up. We haven’t completely decorated it though. Maddie picked out a special ornament, which she has managed to break in three different ways in less than 24 hours. Luckily, most of it can be glued back together. I was able to get a huge chunk of Christmas shopping done and also ordered our Christmas cards. Now it will be the real test of how long does it actually take to send them out! I always buy the cards, but then it takes me until the day before Christmas (or even after Christmas) to actually put them in the mail. Yikes!

There’s still a lot to get done before Christmas and Maddie is getting so excited! I am excited just to be able to be done with the hardest part of all of my treatments in time for the holidays. Two more to go!