11/1/23
I seemed to have turned a post chemo corner. I am less breathless, have more energy and spark and when I look in the mirror I look a bit more like me. The puffy eyes are diminishing and my skin has lost the waxy quality that it took on. I am making slow and steady headway, the path is not linear, I get good days and bad, I am learning to be patient with myself.
My eyes still water a lot, due to a condition un ironically called dry eye, I have drops that are helping with this. Chemo can unearth conditions that you had under control, mine was silent reflux, back with vengeance, requiring a short course of Omeprazole to tame, I should be able to go back to dietary control once the chemo is out of my system.
The oncology registrar is happy with my progress and remarked how well I look (despite the i/v poisons!). I was able to discuss my concerns about the radiotherapy, she was reassuring and I duly signed the consent form.
I attended a Radiotherapy planning session in advance of active treatment. Like much of the oncology at Poole hospital this is all done in a discrete department away from the main hubbub, this is comforting, you know that many of the folks waiting with you are in the same boat. A radiotherapy technician lead me to an office to discuss my treatment and answer questions. I signed an inclusive pregnancy form and took another disappointing party bag. This time I received a tube of the rather alarmingly titled ‘Flamigel’, designed to protect my skin from the worst effects of radiotherapy and I was given a rather fetching 3 armed gown that I will take in and wear for each visit. The extra armhole is wrapped around the back and over your right arm, this leaves access for treatment whilst giving greater modesty than most hospital gowns.
I was curious why radiotherapy would leave some folks tired, when it is a localised treatment rather than systemic like chemotherapy. I was told that whilst some of this is physical, my healthy cells will also be damaged and need to repair, a lot is psychological. The worry and stress of daily attendance at the hospital, a continual reminder that you are being treated for cancer. For some, the travel will induce it’s own stresses. I have heard folks making 2 hourly bus journeys there and back, one Poole patient had to travel daily from Lyme Regis.
I am to have photon beams (x-rays) fired at my chest wall and the supra clavicular fossa (SCF). These should mop up any stray cancer cells in my lymph nodes that have evaded chemotherapy. I am told that it halves the risk of recurrence, that will do for persuasion!
The next part of the planning process involved me being sort of internally measured to find where my important organs are, you know lungs, heart that type of thing. They will then calibrate the machines to target away from these. Whilst wearing the aforementioned gown you lay on a motorised table with fittings designed to keep you precisely in the same place as the actual treatment machines. You grip two handles above your head and find a “comfortable” position. The table then feeds you into a CT scanner that builds a 3D picture of your organs. The machine is called ‘Big Bore’, I guess we’ve all met a few of those. It is ironic that the measuring involves a multi million pound state of the art scanner and at the other end of the scale a radiographer wielding a B and Q analogue tape measure.
The room was cool but not unpleasantly so and I have become used to the jet engine noises the machinery makes. When the measuring is complete they then ‘tattoo’ or as they are now euphemistically called ‘permanent skin marks’, this amounts to four tiny dots. These are registration points for the machines to lock onto, ensuring that the same area is being targeted each time.
My treatment begins on the 24th, I will, as always employ the best combination of ‘taking it in my stride and ‘run at it, shouting’.
Sending you and your partner in crime lots of love <3