I’ve been tattooed, CT-scanned, X-rayed, and presumably they know to the millimeter where I am going to get zapped. So, I start tomorrow morning at 7:30a (the latest afternoon appt was 2:30p, and that’s too early for me to get off work.)
I get 33 treatments, so with the holidays I figure I’ll be done around mid-January. My plan is to put lotion on after every treatment. My doctor said any cheap lotion will do, but I got some samples of Udder cream and I have an aloe plant in the front yard, and I might put aloe on at night.
Congrats - that means that the whole chemo stage is done and you are entering the final stage of this whole thing. That light at the end of the tunnel must be getting bright by now.
I don‘t usually post, but I took care of my mom while she was treated for breast cancer, and I thought I would share a couple things that were relevant in our case.
Even a plain Dove body bar irritated my mom’s skin horribly, so she had to stay away from anything scented. No perfumed lotions, obviously, but most soaps and body washes. The yummy smelling Bath and Body Works stuff was out the window.
Aquaphor! Yes, it’s sticky and it feels gross, but putting it on at night (with a light shirt or something similar) helped out a lot. Lubriderm seemed to make things worse, for some reason.
About halfway through her treatment (eight weeks, I believe) her skin became much, much hotter to the touch all the time. She found it soothing to put a damp washcloth on her chest a couple times a day.
Like I said, I just lurk these boards, but I’ve followed your threads, and have been shaking my voodoo stick for you. I’ll be holding good thoughts.
Other than the skin burns, I hear radiation is cake (or pie, if you prefer) next to chemo. I only had the chemo, so I don’t know personally. hugs It’s almost done!!
I only had 15 radiation treatments… on two vertebrae. One in my neck and one in my lower back. The actual treatments weren’t bad. They go quickly–you’re out of there in about ten minutes. After two weeks, I started getting exhausted. Since I had the treatment on my neck, I got a bad sore throat which lasted about a week and a half. I lived on smoothies and milkshakes.
The people at the cancer center where I had my treatment were wonderful and I loved my radiation oncologist. I gave them some of my homemade biscotti on the day of my last treatment.
Now, I hear my hospital has a new radiation machine which is much better at pinpointing the area that needs radiation…thus eliminating side effects. too late for me.
All I can say about the bad stuff is …it passes.
