She Radiates

Today was our radiation “meet and greet” with Dr. Macko – who happens to be a very sweet woman …again, compassionate and caring as well as knowledgeable.

We spent at least 5 hours with her. The first few hours were the standard question and answer session followed by what to expect from the radiation.

Since my mom went through radiation back in 1998 when she had breast cancer, this is a place in our journey that she is familiar with. While there are a lot of things to know, its’ not as much as with the chemo and the side affects are not as prevalent.

The big thing will be tiredness. They say it takes a year to fully recovery from the surgery and I am sure that the body is still a little out of what from the chemo.

Good news is that we only have to do 25 treatments. They initially predicted 33, but I learned an interesting thing today. They base the length of radiation of the part of the body/organ they are targeting. They now exactly how many treatments an area can take before you (for lack of a better word) over cook it.

We start on Monday, January 8th and pretty much go non-stop, every week, until mid-February. Since this is winter in Texas, if we get a round of bad weather and miss a day, they tack it on at the end – kind of like a radiation snow day!

Of course, I did tell mom that I could stand her in front of the microwave, with the door open, and set the timer…I mean if it’s good enough to cook a potato than its good enough for my mom! (I’m kidding of course.)

Mom got her markings today. They basically lay you on a giant wooden bed, take x-rays and mark the precise spots with a Sharpie and tattoo ink exactly where the radiation beams will hit each and every time. It’s pretty interesting how they can pinpoint the exact placement and while it took almost an hour to mark her up, this will make her actual treatments go much quicker.

They are going to radiate four sides (front, back and both sides) for a few minutes each. They expect each treatment to last about 30 minutes from the time we get her situated to the time we walk out the door – not bad!

So mom is going to relax around the house until Monday and then we hit the ground running.

Love to you all and I will keep you updated!