The snowfall on Wednesday was beautiful. We had about 8 inches at our house I think. We have been really busy. I just dropped B and E off with 7 others who are going to go winter camping in the foothills of Saddleback Mountain. Between getting to work and our other commitments, we have been stumbling around insulite pads, insulated sleeping bags, gorp and snowshoes. B and E have been putting together pulks, making waterbottle necklaces out of old padding and duct tape and running around in their long underwear. I love camping. Unfortunately I don’t think my body can manufacture the hutspa to keep itself warm enough even if I put the campfire inside my snowsuit. (This, of course, is totally not counting the hot flash syndrome…) I was freezing just standing outside taking pictures of them all loading the gear. Right now it’s 20 degrees at our house and the wind is a howlin’. I’ll put on some venison stew today so when they get home tomorrow afternoon, they will be happy boys.
Instead of camping, I get to be the chauffeur for the 15 year old girl with the very busy social life this weekend. That’s ok for me too. I love that she is involved in her life and has such sweet friends to be with. I think the distractions are important at this point. She checks in with me regularly. She tells me I’m cute, especially when I rip my hat off during a hot flash. She snuggles with me just at the right times. We are AOK.
I have been able to get to work each day. I’m meeting with staff and am getting a sense of the things that I can get accomplished on the short term, since the longer term is more difficult to plan for right now. I am trying to be careful about over committing and not being able to fulfill my promises. I’m being cautious about my availability because I just don’t know how the chemo will affect me over time. It’s been great to get my mind focused on other things and feel like I’m doing normal stuff. I’ve felt energy and no discomfort all week.
We met with our radiologist yesterday… the first male doc on the team. He is really a gentle spirit. He said that if more than 4 nodes are involved, my chances of staying cancer free essentially doubled if I go forth with radiation. No brainer. We went into the visit with this expectation so there was minimal disappointment for me. Don’t get me wrong, I would have loved to hear “no radiation necessary”. But this is NOT realistic or wise in my case. At this point it’s more of the pickin’ em up and puttin’ em down sort of thing that B is teaching me so well. This G.O. has had to learn that there is optimism and then there is fooling myself. There IS an end to the treatments, it’s just not this week. I think my idea in a much earlier entry was that springtime will be the time for new growth and energy.
Here’s what I took from the meeting: Two weeks after chemo is over we are to call and make an appointment for a simulation. We learned that when one gets radiation, the majority of the time is spent on positioning. In order to keep the subsequent visits short and the treatment accurate, they make a pillow of sorts with an impression for me to put myself into each time. This is like an hour long process but only has to happen once. I will be positioned with my hands behind my head. They will take a scan of the area so that the radiologist can make the plan of how much radiation, where to aim the beams and what shape the beams should take. There will be some radiation to the area under my arm as well as on my shoulder as there are nodes up there. They will tatoo me with dots the size of a freckle at certain points, and this will allow me to be in the right position and the machine to be lined up consistently each time. (I wonder if that’s the time to ask the tatoo artist for his/her portfolio? Maybe I could get a two for one deal or something.) It will apparently be like getting a sunburn over time. This occurs 5 days a week over many weeks. Apparently the actual radiation time is something like 5 minutes once everything gets set up. The doc encouraged me to bring along aloe gel to put on right after the treatments. He said that treatments will not hurt and I will feel the same leaving as I did entering, but over time the biggest reactions to radiation in this area are fatigue, skin stuff and maybe throat discomfort. I guess bringing the SPF 50 might be counter productive.
He examined the incision and encouraged more scar massage and aloe to keep the area as stretchy and supple as possible as well as to counteract the chemo affect on my skin. You know, since I’m inexperienced at surgeries, I had no idea about the care and feeding of an incision other than the initial keep it dry phase. Now I have to keep it MOIST. My skin is dry enough in winter. With the help of chemo and radiation I may look like a raisinette in short order. The biggest take away for me from that meeting was my feeling about the radiologist. He’s a keeper. There was something about him that reminded me of a sweet friend of mine.
So I want to write briefly about massaging a mastectomy scar. I just peeled away the last of the seri strips from the end of the incision near where the nodes were taken. That stuff is amazing. I remember the days when we’d get stitches and walk out with the stitches showing. Seri strips are such a good idea, I wish I invented them. It is a bizarre feeling that there is no sensation on the scar. I still have some residual adhesive around the area because I’m hesitant to scrub it off because I cannot gauge how vigorously to scrub. OK, probably more than anyone wants to know, but no one told me this stuff. I’m a very sensory oriented being, so it fascinates me. I’m sure there have been numerous occasions when my family heard “Oh WOW!” from the bathroom and just didn’t want to know what was going on in there. So the feeling I DO get when I massage the scar is not physical. I guess I would call it a nurturing feeling. Like building a relationship with this new body.
Ok, so there is still a ways to go, but the finish line is in sight. Glad you are feeling better in general. Wish we could share the stew with you all.
R