Everyday for the past 6 weeks I've sat outside this waiting room watching this sign go on and off. "BEAM ON" knowing I'm next.
When there is a patient in the radiation zone they gate it off and lock the room and light up the sign. That's how lethal radiation is. I've thought about this for 6 weeks everyday as I sit there waiting to go in. I weighed the risk and benefit and given my advanced stage of cancer and how many lymph nodes it was just too risky to not do it. Even if it means I may develop a second cancer, that's in the future and in order to have one...radiation was strongly recommended - even by my integrative naturopath. So there I sat. For 6 weeks waiting for my turn to lay on the table.
I'm sure there aren't too many people reading this who've been inside a radiation machine, or at least I I hope there aren't. So here's what one looks like. You lay on the table that moves and the one circular head delivers the radiation and the square pads deflect the radiation to triangulate the beam in a precise and very calculated way. Down to the mm.
The black table slides forward and the machine closes in closer to you and spins and adjusts. The red arm attachment is where my right arm has to be bent above my head at 90. The radiologists position the body and after they are done there can be zero movement or it all has to start again. A sensor is placed on my belly to sense my breathing and unless I maintain a pattern of breathing in and out the machine has to reset. When the beam is on I have to inflate my lungs and hold my breath until it is done. On good days it took 15-20 minutes, on longer days, they had to take pictures, line me back up and start again, sometimes 30-40 minutes. Every day. For 6 weeks.
During this time I would also travel twice a week to the Marsden centre to receive hyperthermia treatment. It is a probe placed on the area of radiation that heats the cells without damaging healthy cells but makes the cancerous cells more susceptible to radiation. The drive was an hour and a bit each way after radiation and the therapy was an hour long and cost $375 a session. When I get to the counter twice a week and have to pay I thank all the people who donated to my Go Fund me over and over in my head. These treatments would never have been possible for me.
So here is me under the probe. I have to lay still with this thing on me and my arm above my head for an hour and my head turned. It's not hot, you can hardly feel it, but my fingers would go numb and my arm would ache.
You can see the black disc , that's the top of the probe, the rest is pressed to my chest. After it's over, I drive home, and it's usually around 4pm and that's all I've done two of five days in a week. It was tiring. I get home and do my best to really spend attention and time with the kids, but some days it's hard. I am grateful for Jason and for my sister and Cam for being there for many of the days to help me with all the things.
It was a rough 6 weeks.
Today....I rang the bell.
I'm done radiation and hyperthermia! You can see I'm smiling behind my crooked mask. You can see my hair is growing back and I've gained back some muscle in my legs from cycling daily. I do have some radiation dermatitis (which is like a really bad rash) but they say they don't think my skin will break open so that's positive.
I use MediHoney from New Zealand every night and it's been helping. I now wait 2 weeks to see how my skin recovers from radiation and then the skin damage from radiation is over it's just recovery. It's possible in 6-8 weeks I may develop a delayed lung reaction but fingers crossed I don't. Right now I'm looking ahead to summer, sunscreened to the max of course.... I got myself a long sleeved bathing suit with extra UV protection and it's not horrible. It's a surfer look.
How's that for an extreme close up? LOL. My eyebrows and lashes are back too.
So what's next? I continue to travel to Marsden twice a week for Vitamin C IVs. My blood is en route to the Cell Search Lab in the States to be tested for circulating tumor cells. This isn't something Canadian Hospitals don't offer and it's expensive but it gives an idea if there is any cancer in the body. It will take 2-4 weeks for the results and we'll go from there with more aggressive treatment if necessary at the naturopathic clinic and with my herbalist (again, all things that would never had been possible without contributions at the Go Fund Me).
So, my journey continues, but today one part of my journey came to an end and I made it through. A little burned and a little scarred but I made it through. God willing the treatment did what it was supposed to and I'm one step closer to being rid of cancer forever.
Everyday I take steps forward. I guess we all do. Today was a big one. It was another hurdle, something I didn't think I could get through alone but I did.
It's true when they say you're stronger than you think you are, and you find out how strong when you have to be. I do it all for my two babies, I do it for Jason, my family and I do it because I'm not done living. Everyday I wake up I'm grateful for another day, some easier than others but all a part of a life.
I'm grateful for mine, even if it is hard. I'm grateful for all the good things I still have and that I completed something today.
I don't know what the future will hold. None of us do, but I know radiation is in the past and I am grateful to have had access to it, and for making it through and I'm grateful for all the ups and downs that together will make up my beautiful life.
Tomorrow if it's sunny I'll get back on my bike and head down the path, I don't know what's at the end but the ride is beautiful and for as long as I can I'm looking forward down a straight stretch, if there are hills, I'll climb them when I have to, enjoy the wind in my face on the way down too. Life is a ride.
Goddamn if I'm not going to to my best to enjoy it and celebrate a hill crested today.
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