Wait. What?

Wait. What?

I think there should be some kind of trophy, or medal, or certificate of achievement, something anyway to mark the completion of cancer treatment. I understand why it’s not done, but nonetheless it seems like all this hard work and endurance should reach some point of crescendo, a climax, a triumphant overcoming of the evil beast rather than just sputtering out at the end with a casual “have a nice life.”

wait.what

I have Herceptin infusions scheduled every three weeks for several months. One of those appointments was today. Today was a rough day; one of those days where everything seems a little more complicated than it should be. Keys are lost, things forgotten, I trip over my own feet, and I’m just doing good to remember where I am, and where I’m going. But I did manage to make it to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance on time to have my port tapped for the blood draw.

After the blood draw we had the standard 2 hour wait till the doctor appointment, followed by my Herceptin infusion. Or so I thought. A long boring wait only to find out when we checked in that we missed the appointment; it was scheduled for an hour earlier. It took several phone calls and discussions between staff members, but they were able to squeeze me, and my now slightly elevated  blood-pressure in.

Right off the bat, my doctor asked me if I want to have another baby. “I can refer you to our fertility specialist, if you would like.” Wait. What?

That was the farthest thing from my brain at the moment. I’d love for Gem to have a sibling, but I’ve been so focused on beating cancer, and moving mom out of her apartment, and the trip to Alaska, and then moving us out of our apartment that thoughts of baby-making, aside from the semi-regular baby-making practice, have not been on the agenda. I really thought this appointment would be more about the wheezing and extreme heaviness in my chest I have been experiencing since we moved into our new apartment.

Which I told her. So she listened to my lungs and wrote an order for a chest x-ray to make sure the cancer had not spread.

Then she proceeded to tell me that today would be my last treatment.

Wait. What?

I’ve got months of treatment left. Besides, if this was my last treatment, I would have baked brownies for everyone and scheduled a party or something. I love my doctor, I love my nurses – I want to celebrate and thank them. She looked back at the chart, checked again, yup, today would be my last treatment. I’m done. We’ll just cancel the extra appointments.

Then I was whisked off to infusion for the treatment, which was pushed through faster than usual so I could run down to radiology and get the xray in quick before they closed for the day. While all this was happening, the baby blew out her diaper, so my still-fearful-of-poopie-even-though-he’s-been-a-father-for-two-years husband had to deal with a very cranky toddler with more poop than her diaper could handle and not enough wet wipes on the planet while I proceeded to lose my cell phone running between appointments.

We finally got everyone back together and mostly cleaned up and in the car stuck smack dab in the middle of Seattle 5pm downtown gridlock when I discovered the missing phone. The phone they were going to call with the results of the scan.

Finally, we’re home. We have the phone, which no one has called. It’s 8 pm and no results yet. No news is good news, right?

So, either I’m done with cancer treatment- or I’m not, and in a very bad way.

I feel like I should be celebrating right now, but I’m more stunned than anything.

UPDATE: results are in – XRAY IS CLEAR! I’m done with treatment!

I’m ready for my trophy now.

You can learn more about my cancer story here:

my cancer story | Judy Schwartz Haley

 

Let’s Connect

. . . .  .  . . . .
Follow on Bloglovin

Walkthrough of Radiation Treatment for a Cancer Patient

Walkthrough of Radiation Treatment for a Cancer Patient

Curious what radiation treatment is like for cancer patients? This post will walk you through one day of radiation treatment for a patient with breast cancer (me).

Disclaimer: It is important to note that cancer treatments are tailored to the patient and their pathology, so there can be quite a bit of variation in the way treatment is experienced.

Here’s a peek into my experience getting radiated for breast cancer.

Walkthrough of Radiation Treatment | CoffeeJitters.Net | By Judy Schwartz Haley

My first day with the radiation team did not involve radiation at all.  On this appointment, I spent the bulk of my time in a CT Scan machine (no contrast) that was used to take measurements that would be used to design my specific treatment plan. They spent quite a bit of time aligning my body into a specific position, with my arms up over my head, gripping a post at the top of the bed.

Then I was tattooed: four little dots, one on each side at the bottom of my rib cage, and two down the center, one right in the middle of my breast bone, and the other, just below the bottom of my breast bone. They also placed a bag of chemicals under my head and shoulders; as those chemicals reacted to each other they formed a sturdy foam that conformed to my shape and would be a cradle that would hold me in this position for my treatments.

It took about a month to get the radiation plan squared away.  Then they called me in for another appointment – no radiation this time either, but this was a run through to make sure all of the calculations were in order.  On the last field, they discovered that the frame touched my chest, that’s why they do the run through, so they to called in the dosimetrist, physicist and a physician to make an adjustment to my treatment plan. They also gave me my fifth tattoo two inches below my collarbone.  The next day I went back for my first radiation treatment.

Radiation is administered every day except for weekends and holidays. My plan was for 28 days, which was six weeks once you fit in the two holidays.  The team was amazing. There was always at least two radiation technicians, and usually three or more, involved in my treatment each day.  They worked together, double checking every single setting, and making me comfortable at the same time.

Radiation Treatment

The room in which the radiation was administered was behind a foot thick door.

The ceiling lights had pictures, just like the dentist, only the pictures are nicer.

walkthrough of radiation treatment

Tools are laid out, and ready to go. Those markers, very important medical devices.  These guys scribbled all over me every day.

walkthrough of radiation treatment

When I first enter the room, I lie down on the bed and they put a band around my feet to hold them still, and cover me up with a warm blanket. Oh, I love those warm blankets. I fit my head and shoulders into the foam cradle, and there is a post sticking up at the top of the bed for me to wrap my hands around. The form and the post help a lot with holding still.  The bed is driven around a bit to line my tattoos up with the equipment, and then to make adjustments for each field of the treatment.

The machine that administers the radiation is also capable of taking digital x-rays. Once a week, treatment started with x-rays to make sure everything still lined up correctly (this helps them course correct in case of swelling or changes in weight during the 6 week course of treatment).

There’s Jerrod, drawing lines on my chest. The lines were actually drawn on to make sure I was lined up correctly while they administered the field.

walkthrough of radiation treatment

Brass Bolus

The first two doses of radiation are administered with the use of metal fabric called brass bolus.  The brass bolus is used to help trick the radiation beam into focusing closer to my skin rather than deeper into my body.

walkthrough of radiation treatment

If you think my breast is a weird shape, sitting up like that while I’m laying on my back, you’d be right.  It’s not really a breast. The breast is gone. That’s an implant called an expander that was put in place during my mastectomy, and it makes it possible for me to get new boobs after I’m healed up from treatment.  Aaron calls it my bionic boob.

The expander does require some working around when it comes to the radiation treatments. The brass bolus is used, rather than the foam bolus, because it conforms to the shape of the expander better. You can see from the picture below that its a bit slinky and hugs the curves. Once they get it placed just right, they tape it to make sure it doesn’t move.

walkthrough of radiation treatment

Once they get everything lined up perfectly, the team leaves the room.  There are several video cameras and the room and they can hear me and speak to me, so it’s not like I’m completely isolated. I don’t feel the radiation, but the machine does hum while it’s being administered. Then they come back in, position the equipment to focus on the another area, and repeat.

walkthrough of radiation treatment

Boost

For me, there were two positions with the brass bolus, then two more that focused on my collar bone, and then the final shot involved this contraption; they referred to it as “the boost.”. The purpose of this last shot was to put an electron field right up under the corner of that expande.

walkthrough of radiation treatment

Much of the time while they were lining me up, the lights were out so they could more readily see the lasers and make other measurements with light that was projected on to my skin.

walkthrough of radiation treatment

Every member of this team was so professional, at the same time, they were able to crack a joke, and keep me laughing through treatment.  They made it so I didn’t dread going in every day.

Thank You

Today is my last treatment, so I want to take a moment to shout out to the team. Dr. Janice Kim, Dr. Ermoine, Dane, Jarrod, Randall, Lorena, Jeannette, Sue, Jenny, Talina, Tony, Kelly, Christine, Rowena, and Sheree (and I’m so sorry if I left someone’s name out) – thank you so much for taking such good care of me.  And thank you for tolerating the photo shoots while you were working.

I hope this post will help ease your mind if you are facing radiation treatment. If you have received a cancer diagnosis and are wondering what you can expect from treatment, you might also check out my post: Walkthrough of Chemo Day for a Cancer Patient.

Did you notice that stuff on my head?  Hair!

border-green

You can learn more about my cancer story here:

my cancer story | Judy Schwartz Haley

 

Let’s Connect

. . . .  .  . . . .
Follow on Bloglovin

Walkthrough of chemo day for a cancer patient

Walkthrough of chemo day for a cancer patient

Ever wondered what a day of chemotherapy was like for a cancer patient? I thought I’d bring you along today, and give you a snapshot of what cancer treatment looks like. I hope its helpful to the newly diagnosed. Obvious disclaimer: of course, every patient’s treatment is different, and each cancer treatment center is different.

Chemo Day

6:00 AM
Alarm goes off. I’m supposed to get up and take my pills. I’m on a new type of chemo that requires me to take a pill 12 hours, 6 hours, and 1 hour before the chemo infusion starts (the first pill was taken care of last night). I hit the snooze button.

Again.

And again.

And again.

7:00 AM
Actually get out of bed and take the pill. Oops. Time to get the baby and myself ready to go.

7:45 AM
Mom shows up to take us in for treatment. She even packed me a lunch for my long day. Thanks Mom.

8:15 AM
I arrive at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. Mom takes the baby with her for the day. Check in for Port Access. (Instead of having an IV put in every time I go in, I have a port that is installed under the skin near my left collarbone. I know a lot of people hate having the port, but I love it. It’s so much nicer than the IVs and for some reason, getting an IV going on me is really difficult.) After the port access is installed I go around for the rest of the day with these tubes dangling from my chest.

Accessed Power Port for chemo

Break into moms lunch while I’m waiting.

9:30 AM
Blood draw for MUGA scan (Multi Gated Acquisition Scan). They take my blood, make it radioactive, and later they will return it to me, then they can track the blood as it makes its way through my heart to determine it’s efficiency. Several of the agents in my chemo are known to cause some heart damage to a small percentage of patients. This scan is scheduled periodically to determine how well my heart is handling the chemo, and whether we need to make any adjustments. This isn’t part of my normal chemo routine.

waiting . . .
Seattle Cancer Care Alliance Waiting Room

waiting . . .
Seattle Cancer Care Alliance Waiting Room

waiting . . .
Seattle Cancer Care Alliance Waiting Room

10:05 AM
The machine that does the MUGA scan is a long narrow bed (generous term) with an arm holding a 2″x2″ tablet that looks something like a small film holder for an x-ray machine. When I lay down, the radiologist attached leads and wires to my abdomen and chest, then another tech came in and they both verified that the blood they are giving back to me, now radioactive, actually belongs to me. The the treated blood goes back in through the port. Then she covered me up with a warmed blanket, they have blanket warmers all over the place here and they are really good about making sure you don’t catch a chill. After covering me up, she help up a wide vinyl loop to stick my arms through so I could relax them and wouldn’t have to hold them in the air at my side throughout the test. Seriously, when I say a long narrow bed, I mean maybe a foot and a half wide, not enough room to rest your arms at your side. The radiologist positions the tablet just above, but not touching, my chest. Then it’s a matter of just laying still for a long time, repositioning the tablet to get another angle, repeat… you get the picture. No pain, just boring laying there and trying not to move – plus I had a bit of a cough, and it was really frustrating trying not to cough.

10:50
Stop by the pharmacy to pick up a prescription – to be honest, it’s a refill of the pills I’m supposed to take 1 hour before chemo because I forgot them at home. I’m really on a roll today. I’m blaming it on chemo brain.

11:00 AM
Take the pills and meet with my Oncologist’s nurse, Martha. I usually meet with either the nurse or the doctor before each infusion. We discuss my symptoms and any questions I might have. I confess I took my pill late this morning, she said it’s no problem at all, I just needed to get the pill in the general time frame. She also said that my blood counts are awesome (yay me!), and my heart is operating well within normal parameters. That’s what I like to hear.

Seattle Cancer Care Alliance Waiting Room

11:30 AM
Check in for my chemo infusion. They give me a pager like the kind you get at restaurants while you’re waiting for a table.
pager

11:50 AM
Pager goes off and I head back to my chemo room (Bay 39 this time) and get settled in. I follow my nurse around, so the bay I’m in depends on the section she’s working in. Joy is so awesome I’d happily sit on a speed bump in the parking lot if that’s what it took to have her do my infusions. Joy orders my meds and then we compare notes on our babies while we wait for the meds to show up (ok, not the whole time, she did check on her other patients).

Infusion Bay for Chemotherapy

12:30 PM
Start Herceptin infusion through the port.

Today’s lineup:

chemotherapy drugs used for treating breast cancer

12:45 PM
The husband finally arrives. Yay! He tries to be here with me for most of this stuff, but he had a critical class this morning, and I really prefer that he not miss his classes.

2:20 PM
Benadryl and Zantac, pill form. Zofran pushed into the line in the port by hand. These are premeds to help prevent nausea and help prevent an allergic reaction. Now we are getting ready start the real chemo: Taxol. Another nurse came in to verify that the meds and the patient both match the Doctor’s orders. They don’t do this for every single medication, just the really big guns. The nurse also puts on a plastic apron, with full length sleeves and wrist cuffs, before handling these really harsh meds.

Chemotherapy Bag

2:50 PM
Sent The Husband to procure treats from the Infusion Unit kitchen: specifically mac’n’cheese, and chocolate ice cream. Please no lectures on health food, it’s chemo day.

nearly 3:00 PM
The Husband returned with the ice cream and tortellini with pesto, they were out of the mac’n’cheese. Totally appropriate substitution.

play around online for several hours . . .

Getting Chemo

6:45 PM
Zoladex: this is a little pellet that is inserted into my abdomen with a needle. The lidocaine shot they give me before hand hurts more than this shot. Then the port is removed and I get a little bandage, and we head out of the building where mom and the baby have arrived to give us a ride home.

Symptoms: The first evening of chemo I usually feel great. The meds they have been giving me to combat nausea are awesome, almost no nausea at all. The biggest side effect for me has been fatigue. It’s just really hard to stay awake sometimes, or to get off the couch at any time. It sounds counter-intuitive, but exercise does help with fatigue. Generally the symptoms accumulate through the course of the week. Tuesday is more foggy than Monday: Thursday and Friday I’m much more exhausted than Wednesday. It’s interesting that there is such a long (several days) delay between getting the chemo and when the symptoms hit their peak. I’m curious to see how my symptoms will change with the Taxol. Many people I’ve met say the Taxol was easier for them to tolerate than the AC I was on before, although there were a few that had a more difficult time. I’ll report back next week with an update.

And for those of you who have been anxious to see a picture of my bald head:
bald head

If you have any questions about cancer, treatment, symptoms, side effects, or how I’m dealing with it all, please feel free to ask in the comments. I’m happy to answer questions.

And if there is anyone out there who has just been diagnosed with cancer, I hope this post will be helpful for you. Hang in there. Bear in mind that every treatment plan is different, and everyone experiences and tolerates their treatment different. I found that most of the worst case scenarios my imagination conjured up were much worse than the reality when I finally faced it. I hope the same is true for you. Best Wishes.

Update

You can learn more about my cancer story here:

my cancer story | Judy Schwartz Haley

 

Let’s Connect

. . . .  .  . . . .
Follow on Bloglovin