radiation

Today we met with the radiation oncologist.  It was somewhat of a short visit, but informative.  He was a very nice guy and explained everything really well (not that I remembered everything as well as he explained it though).  So here is what will be happening.

My last chemo cycle will begin on October 12th, and about 3-4 weeks after that I will get a CAT scan to make a "map" of me to determine exactly where the radiation will be focused each time.  That mapping will take a week to 10 days, and then after that is completed radiation treatments will actually begin.  So, it will be mid-November at the earliest before treatments start, and we're still not sure if they will last for 6 or 7 weeks.  That will be determined by the mapping from the CAT scan.  And we may wait until after Thanksgiving at that point, just so that I can enjoy some normalcy over one of the holidays.  It all just depends on a few things that we need to discuss.

So all this time we've been thinking that the big treatments - surgery, chemo, radiation - would be finished by the end of the year, but that's looking uncertain now.  But that's okay.  It will still be over soon. 

Other than that, he explained that the treatments are everyday, Monday - Friday.  And that each time would take about 30 minutes at the most.  No surprises there.

Side effects most likely will be a sunburn-type of skin irritation and fatigue, both more likely to come at the end of the treatment period.  Again, things we had expected.

At one point he asked about my appetite. I said it was okay. I think what he heard was "I really haven't been eating much because my mouth and stomach are all messed up and it's too much trouble to try to fight it". Because he started telling me how they really don't want me to lose any weight right now, and how your body actually needs extra energy in order to heal. And how no one really ever gains weight while going through this, so I have a free ticket to eat whatever I want. Whatever sounds good. Whatever tastes good. McDonald's, whatever. I nodded and said okay that I would do that. Inside I felt guilty because I should have told him I threw nutrition out the window months ago when I started eating ice cream shakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner cause that's all that would go down and stay down :)  The funny thing is that I immediately got a craving for a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit from McDonald's.  And, yes, I ate potato chips and lil smokies for lunch.  See, I'm a great patient.