My Radiationship

I am in the third quarter of my treatment plan at last.  Radiation was recommended as kind of an “insurance policy” to keep me from getting cancer again.  Basically, even though all of the tissue they took from me tested with only dead cancer cells, there is still a chance that a cancer cell could be out there.  Think of surgery like cutting a cake (a Cupcake in my instance as that is the nickname my boys gave me.)  When you pull a knife out of a cake, sometimes you have crumbs on the icing afterward.  Radiation basically kills off any possible “crumbs” of cancer left behind.  Again, just insurance and at this point I want to take every precaution because I do NOT want to go through this shit again. 

However, let me ask you  -What does “a few” or “several” mean to you?  To me it means three, maybe four.  No such luck with my doctors – to them it means Six and a Half!  So my newest addition to Team Debbie – Medical Division is Dr. Bobby Hong who tells me the length of treatment when I met him the first time and it sure wasn’t a great kickoff to our relationship.  Or shall I say Radiationship because it certainly feels like a long term commitment to me – and not a terribly good one!  

Dr. Hong is the head of Virginia Hospital Center’s Radiation Oncology Department.  He is very personable but as Kimmie, who went to my first appointment with me would tell you, has glasses that make him look like a serial killer.  However, he is rated a top doc, which doesn’t surprise me because my whole medical team has been very highly respected and well trained.  In spite of this, I hate radiation.

 It doesn’t help that it took so long for us to get started with this phase of the treatment.  I had my first meeting with Dr. Hong when I was still getting my implant fill from Dr. Mesbahi (more on that later) but we could not start radiation until that was done so time dragged about 3 extra weeks. 

Finally it was time for my computer modeling and my tatooing.  That was kind of cool – the modeling not the tattooing.   The computer does a schematic of the side of my body that would receive radiation.  Yes, side of the body, not a spot treatment for me because the damn cancer was so bad and we aren’t leaving anything to chance.  Then it was another week’s wait until they were done with the treatment plan. 

So the nurse called and said they were ready to start – but yet it would be ANOTHER week before I would go in for a “dry run” for them to check the modeling.   My patience was pretty much at its limit and THEN they add that they will be getting a computer software upgrade so I wouldn’t start actually treatment until the week after THAT!  Argh. 

The dry run appointment on June 6 was an epic fail on the part of the Radiation Oncology Department.  To start with they were running an hour and twenty minutes late.  I am not always Tillie-On-Time myself but seriously they couldn’t give me a call and say “don’t rush over because we are running more than an hour late?”  Very annoying.  They weren’t even apologetic about it.  The oversight doc was not Dr. Hong and when I spoke to that doctor he just looked at me like I wasn’t there.  I kept asking the team what they were doing and they didn’t want to answer.  I was anxious enough this being my first kind time through this – a little communication would have been nice – and having had such a good discussion with Dr. Hong, I couldn’t figure out why his team wasn’t answering my questions.

They do have a lot of work to do to get me set up and I understand it is highly technical.  However, I am the person that is getting this done to their body, and who is laying there half naked while they are fussing about ignoring me.  I didn’t like it one bit.  To my dismay, I started to cry and shake a little and one of the women just yelled at me for moving – hello!??!?!  How about a little compassion here? Ha. No compassion to be found.  FAIL.

I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.  By the time I got to my car, I headed into a full on meltdown.  I was driving down the road shaking and sobbing, totally freaking out.  So I decide to pull in to McDonald’s and get that magic elixir, Diet Coke, when the phone rings.  Perfect timing, Tracy!  She calmed me down in about two minutes.  It is amazing what the voice of someone who loves you can do.  However, the whole experience made me totally dread the actual radiation treatments.

The next piss off is the actual timing of the appointments.  They ask what the best times of the day are for you – of course I say beginning of the day or end of the day – so when is my appointment?  11a.m.  – yeah, way to screw up a day when I am trying to keep my career going through this cancer hell.  I pleaded and begged but I still had to work around a week of 11 a.m.  until a 9:45 a.m. appointment came up – which is much better, but still a pain in the butt to do every single day.

They also lull you into a false sense of timing – they say the actual treatment takes 15-20 minutes.  That is sort of true.  The actual time that the radiation beam is zapping you is about that long.  HOWEVER – most of the time they are running late, the set up to get you in position takes time and sometimes it takes longer than others because it has to be just right, sometimes they have to put diodes on you to measure radiation, sometimes they have to take X-rays…. So what I am saying here is that the LIE – it doesn’t take 15-20 minutes.  They don’t know how long it takes, they really don’t care, and you don’t have a damn choice.  To add insult to injuiry - Nurse J turned up there one day either (not kidding – I could have screamed – I begged the tech to get me away from her!) Argh!

My treatment official started on Monday June 13 – so as I write this, I am already three weeks in and I can tell you for certain that RADIATION SUCKS.

Dr. Hong described radiation to me as getting married and our first meeting as his proposal.  (Yes, he thinks he is funny, and no I don’t get a ring or a big party.)  He said there would be preparations before it was official – so that was all the modeling and crap.  He said the first week or two would be like our honeymoon – things would be easy and we would get in a groove and it wouldn’t bother me too much. Then he said it would start to annoy me, but only a little at first like someone leaving their socks laying around, up to the point where it would exhaust me and drive me insane, but then we would already be married and I would have to deal with the consequences before I could get a divorce and be done, but I might still feel a little bad about it for a week or so after.  It was a pretty good analogy except that clearly he didn’t know he was going to marry a bitch in my case!  I have not been happy since the whole things started and every day it pisses me off more!

He said that no one ever told him that they liked chemo better – I may be on the fence about that.  I think from the stand point of physical side effects, it is much better than chemo – basically what I will deal with is being thirsty ALL the time, a burn much like a really bad sunburn on the area that they are treating, some sleeplessness, lack of an appetite (okay it isn’t ALL bad!), and fatigue that hits me like a bus every afternoon.  Oh – and being ANNOYED EVERY @#!$#!  SINGLE DAY!   The latter being the beginning reason why chemo was easier – I wasn’t annoyed – just sick.  Besides that, there isn’t anything I can take to help with the radiation side effects – I just have to deal with them.  With chemo, there were more solutions to the problems.  I can tell you for certain that the only cure for being ANNOYED EVERY @#!$#! SINGLE EFFING DAY is for radiation to end!

Argh…. Anyway.  I will have 33-35 treatments – not sure how or when he decides, but I am assuming 35 (expect the worst, hope for the best).  If the first  15 treatments are any indication, I should be a pretty awful bitch by the end of radiation, but as long as I am a bitch who is kicking cancer’s ass, that is ok.  I will get over it – cancer won’t.

P.S.  yeah, yeah – I know I am a bitch anyway – imagine me 1000 times WORSE!