Just when you get used to the suckfest…
I see Dr. F (my radiologist) every Tuesday. Yesterday she noted that my left breast is starting to show the pink of radiation burn (in my mind I’ve done better than the warning she gave me of being sunburned at the end of two weeks—I made it to the end of 3 weeks before getting a bit of pink started. Italian skin be praised!)
She also noted some foliculitis and switched my mosturizer. Ironically, it’s similar to the stuff we use in the hospital for patients that develop skin breakdown.
The fatigue is getting to me, and the pain deep inside the breast, presumably the scar tissue, is pretty bad—walking or moving quickly is out of the question since any little jiggle is painful. I’ve taken to wearing two sport bras at a time to prevent the jiggle and this helps a lot.
So, just as I’m thinking “yay, I’m on the downslope of this crap!” she says to me that this portion of the treatment is almost over, and they’ll switch the type of radiation soon.
What? Wait…hold up, back up…what?
So, I guess what I’ve been getting is the easy portion (fuck me)
This has been the “photon” portion…now they’ll switch to “Electron” radiation, with a different adaptor on the Swiss Army Linear Accellerator (seriously, that thing takes xrays, and delivers all sorts of radiation) and get closer on the scar. She said SCARS—plural…and I only realized it after I was done talking to her.
My axillary scar is the most painful, and as far as I know, they don’t give you radiation in the axilla unless you have had positive lymph nodes, and I didn’t.
She said it would get worse, hurt worse, burn worse.
Does this shit ever get any easier? Everyone says “oh, this is the worst, don’t worry, from here it’s all downhill”
That’s a frigging lie.
Each thing has been progressively worse and worse.
The surgery was cake. Painful afterward, but cake.
The chemo sucked.
The radiation sucks worse, and it’s going to start sucking harder now.
I’m looking forward to a white sand beach somewhere, a rainy cobble-stoned street, a tree-lined grove…anyplace but this. I’m going to cringe for the rest of my life, every time I drive past Divisadero and Geary (the UCSF campus where I get my treatment) and that makes me sad. I used to live a few blocks from there, and I had good memories at that neighborhood.
My happy place has become a road trip I’m planning with the aging pooch—likely one of his last road trips. At 13 years old, he’s doing well, but still, he’s not going to live forever. I’m daydreaming of a trip to Seattle or Oregon and about a week of camping among the trees with mountains in view…Happy place.
