Radiation: The Daily Grind

"It's easy!"
"It's a piece of cake!"
"It's nothing compared to chemo."
"It's nothing compared to surgery."

These are all quotes from doctors and nurses regarding radiation. True to form, I'm here to tell you that radiation is not easy. Radiation is not a piece of cake, and you cannot compare chemo to surgery anymore than you can compare radiation to chemo or surgery.

Radiation is it's own form of hell.  Henceforth, I intend to mostly show, not tell the daily grind of radiation therapy. Most of what you will find here is told in pictures, some of which are graphic and show the charred female breast, so reader beware.

Every morning I wake up at 5:30 am, get dressed and wait for my Godfather or husband to drive me to radiation.  In the beginning, I mostly drive myself, but as the burns and nausea increase with time, so my husband and I decide it's better for me not to drive.

At precisely 7:15am Monday through Friday, I enter the sliding glass doors of the Radiation Oncology unit of Hoag Presbyterian Hospital.  With the exception of "mapping" appointments, where they literally map the target area with green lasers, so they know exactly where to burn you each day, the appointments roll on 15 minute increments. For efficiency sake, each patient is issued a badge with bar code that is to be scanned upon arrival for check-in.

Without speaking to or even seeing another human being, I walk toward the woman's locker room.  As long as it's Monday, I pause to weigh myself on the carpeted floor scale, report my weight on a slim piece of paper and drop it in what looks like a raffle ticket box.  of course, I haven't won anything, as my weight is still well below normal or healthy.

From there, I enter the locker room, remove my clothing and jewelry and don a fabulous blue hospital gown and wait for the sound of "Mrs. McCarthy" to come over the loud speaker.  When I got married five years ago, I thought I could never become tired of hearing the sound of "Mrs. McCarthy." I was wrong.

I actually 'liberated" one of these
gowns from the facility,
so I could burn it in a bonfire on the beach.
A burn for a burn!

Next, I walk into a large, cold room, remove the top half of the blue gown I just changed into and cozy up to my metal slab.    

The machine is actually pretty amazing.
It pivots 360 degrees so that it's beams can enter the patient from underneath if need be.
The metal slab rises and lowers in compliment with the "big finger" as I called it.

The radiation tech, sometimes male, then positions me using my very own contoured pillow, lovely stickers (in lieu of tattoos) and green laser beams. I note that some of the techs are male because it seemed to deeply offend the modesty of some of the women in the locker room.  Obviously, I was the exact opposite.  By this stage of the game, I could not give two shits about who saw or handled the Frankenstein tissue on my chest.  I just wanted to survive.  I digress...

Anyhow, it's very important to precisely radiate the targeted tissue each time.  Every time I lay on this table, I thanked God for his many blessings and ask for the warm beams of light to come inside and heal me. Boy did He answer my prayers!  
 

With the exception of fatigue and some nausea, I tolerated the first two weeks with relative ease. As you can see, week three became tougher. They targeted three areas of the breast. Rather than shoot the radiation beams directly into your chest like a sword, which would necessarily radiate the heart and other organs, the beams transverse the tissue.  If you follow the blue lines to my collar bone, you will see another area targeted.  That particular beam went from the cleavage area up to and through the collar bone, leaving burns on the front and back of my trapezoid.

This particular radiation beam traversed the breast along the incision line closest to the tumor point of origin (Left Breast, 3 O'Clock). During surgery, they removed 8 lymph nodes, some near the collar bone, but most from the arm pit, thus the beam and thereby burns extend well up the under arm.

 

Week 3
The skin under the arm begins to turn
a dark, dark brown. Much like the charring of
a marshmallow over a campfire.

Week 4
Increased swelling, fatigue and nausea
You feel exhausted, like you've spent the entire
day in the sun, drinking alcohol
and need a nap before you get sun stroke and vomit.
*Without the fun of enjoying the sun and a drink of course!

Week 5
The burns intensify on my back
Showers become all but in impossible
unless I keep the water cool and below
the waist. Cool baths are preferable

Week 5
More blistering, pain, fatigue, and nausea.
By this point, we were dressing the wound with wet dressings and mesh 24 hours a day.

Week 6
Probably the worst of the burns and pain.  While continuing radiation on the 3 areas,
Dr. Kim spends Wednesday mapping the
"boost area".

Week 7
The last five sessions target the "boost area" only.
This is where the tumor WAS. As you can see, the burns around the boost area are already fading somewhat. The body truly is amazing!

Here are some of my favorite staff members from Hoag Radiation Oncology. Radiation is not a piece of cake, it is not easy, but I made it.  With the help of my wonderful doctors, nurses, friends and family, I made it.  You can too!

Love,
Tiff