27 Down & One More Day

I've now completed 27 sessions of radiation and have one session left. It is tomorrow at 3:45 pm. It’s hard to believe I’m almost done, although I’ve been told that the side effects worsen for the first one to two weeks after the last treatment before they start to get better.

For the most part, the side effects have been manageable. I’m tired, sore and sometimes grouchy (perhaps more than sometimes!). I have a large rectangular patch of what looks like a very bad sunburn on my chest, which I have to put cream on several times a day to hopefully prevent the skin from cracking. It itches and I have to sleep with gloves on so I won’t scratch it and damage the skin. The skin feels like dry leather and it’s bumpy as if every hair follicle is standing up in revolt of this treatment.  One more day.

One more day of going to the Cancer Agency.  Mentally, it’s a bit tough going every day to a place called the Cancer Agency and knowing that you’re a patient. It doesn’t allow you to forget that this is real and not some horrible nightmare. But, everyone I’ve met at the Agency has been really nice and compassionate.

I’m in radiation Unit A. The first time, it was impossible to find. Now, the route is familiar. I am a pro at this and I have a routine. Front entrance, elevator to 2, left, left, right, left, right, elevator to 0, check in at Unit A.

I am robe 889. It is hanging in a cloth bag on a brown hanger on the lower rack, in the middle. I hang it in the same place on the same hanger every day. At first, it was to make my robe easier to find, but now it is a part of my routine.

Last week, I checked in to Unit A at the same time as another woman. She showed them her appointment card and I thought, ‘Aha! A newbie’. You really only need to drop off your appointment card on Fridays, so that they can write in your appointment times for the following week.

We arrived at the change rooms at the same time. My competitive nature surfaced – I will be the best cancer slayer. Today, that means I will be the fastest to change into my robe. Mission accomplished - I was triumphant in my imaginary race.

After changing, it’s time to sit in the waiting room. Sometimes, I don’t have to wait at all and I rarely have to wait for long, which is great because the waiting room is my least favourite part. Before changing into my robe, I imagine that other people think I work at the Agency. I look a lot more like the doctors who treat me than I look like the other patients, who are most often decades older than me.

But, in my robe, I’m clearly a patient. The robe is a thin cotton cloth wrap. It does nothing to hide my flat chest and I try to cover up as much as I can.  In the waiting room, I feel the others, mostly seniors, looking at me. I imagine that I am their feel-better comparison, that they think: ‘That poor young woman, at least I made it to 50, 60 or 70 years old, before cancer struck me’. I look back at them and think: ‘You’re right, I am far too young for this. How the hell did this happen?’ I have yet to see anyone younger than me in the waiting room. One more day.

The radiation therapist calls my name and I am thankful my time in the waiting room is over. The radiation therapists at the Cancer Agency are fantastic. They are kind, caring, gentle and respectful. They also offer me a warm blanket every day for my treatment. Regardless of the situation, I never say no to a warm blanket.

The linear accelerator (a.k.a., radiation machine) looks a little like a really large KitchenAid mixer. I’ve always liked baking, but I’ve learned through my radiation treatments that it’s much nicer to be the baker than the bakee!

I lie down on the ‘bed’ with my arms above my head and my chest exposed. The therapists maneuver me until I am perfectly lined up with the plan designed by my radiation oncologist. 

With only one day left, my area of treatment is obvious – my red rectangle – but, in the beginning it wasn’t so easy. To help line me up in the exact same way every day, I was given two tiny tattoos before treatment began. They are just tiny little blue dots, but they are still tattoos, which means I’m badass now.

About halfway through my treatments, I had a student who was very aggressive when trying to line me up. It was painful, but more than that it was the first time through this whole experience I had ever felt uncomfortable and sensitive about someone touching my chest. It left me in tears and I gave some feedback to the trainer.

That experience made me realize how lucky I’ve been with all of my doctors at the Cancer Agency. I had thought that I had lost all modesty and just didn’t mind being touched and examined, but this experience showed me that it’s actually the skill and training of the doctors and therapists that put me at ease and made me feel comfortable.

On alternate days, I have to wear a ‘bolus’ over the area to be treated. It’s a clear plastic rubbery material that increases the radiation to the skin. Since I had Paget’s, which is a cancer of the nipple, my oncologist wants to make sure that nothing malignant is left in the skin or scar. I see my oncologist every week. Last week, she said I didn’t need the bolus anymore. Apparently, my skin has reacted enough.

Once I’m all lined up in the machine, the therapists leave the room and watch me on their television monitors. I am the star on the most boring tv show imaginable. Through an intercom, they ask me to take a deep breath and hold it. The expansion of my lungs push my heart farther away from the radiation field and that's a good thing. The radiation lasts about 5 seconds and then I’m allowed to exhale. The machine rotates and we repeat, except this time the radiation comes from the side instead of the top. The baking is now done for the day.

I wish the therapists a good day and hurry to the change room where I quickly change back into my regular clothes and put my robe back in bag 889. However, today, my brown hanger wasn’t waiting for me on the middle of the lower rack.  Somebody else had used it! Suspecting a newbie as this had never happened before, my suspicions were confirmed when I spotted my hanger on the end of the lower rack with a newbie’s bag. I knew it was a newbie as the last day of treatment is shown on the outside of the bag. I quickly righted the situation by taking the brown hanger for myself and giving the newbie a lovely white hanger.  I allow myself this little bit of crazy. I just need the brown hanger for one more day, then the newbie can have it.

I try to avoid looking at anyone when I pass through the waiting room on my way out. I exit the Cancer Agency and breathe deeply, elated that I’m done another day. One more day.