Radiation

 Today is nearly the end of week 3 of radiation already. The time really is flying by. Every day I get up and get the kids ready and leave the house by 8:40. I go to my mom's where either the kids stay with her husband or they ride along. Mom is insistent about coming with, for which I am grateful. Though this part of the treatment I could do alone, it's nice to have someone by my side. 

Every day now for three weeks we drive the hour up to Rochester and spend maybe 15 minutes in the Charlton Building. I check into another waiting room where once again I'm usually the youngest one and even among cancer patients I get "the look." The "why are you here?" look. I've grown accustomed to this look over the last 6 months or so. On the chemo floor, I was one of the youngest as well so I'm not sure why I thought radiation would be any different. 

Luckily, the wait time is very minimal and I'm in and out very quickly. I barely sit down before the overhead speaker chimes "Toni Kittredge ready for treatment," and I head to the back and zig-zag down a couple of halls until I find the E, F dressing rooms. Sometimes I find it humorous watching new people get lost and look around the halls for a person to ask where to go to get out as I was that person just 2.5 short weeks ago. We look like mice in a maze.  

I grab a gown from the cupboard by the dressing room doors and get changed. I come out of the dressing room and wait in the dressing room entryway and usually look at the convex mirror on the hallway ceiling thinking back to horror movies that have a deranged hospital patient and the camera pans to that mirror. Sometimes I even take my phone while I wait and take pics in black and white to make it look like I'm an escaped mental patient in a scary movie to amuse myself. 

Usually, after a few minutes, the loud southern lady rounds the corner being pushed in her wheelchair by one of the radiation techs. She's usually mid-story about a cousin of hers or a place she's traveled to with amazing food. That's probably the reason I leave there starving each day. Her getting back means it's my turn, room E is open. Usually, that same tech that pushed the southern belle back walks back to room E just to be sure it's ready then peaks back around the corner and says, "Mrs. Kittredge, we're ready for you." 

I follow them to the room where they have a table lined with a blue sheet, my leg molds, and the shittiest foam box pillow you've ever laid your head upon. I pull my underwear down a bit, open the gown in the back, and lay down on the table. They put a nice warm blanket over my legs and pull it up to my c-section line. Then another tech hands me a foam ring for me to hold to keep my hands and arms up and out of the way. 

They ask for my name and birth date and lift the gown, exposing my abdomen and pelvis. The green laser light on the ceiling and the red laser light on the two side walls line up on the little tattooed freckles they gave me during my simulation. Once I'm all lined up, they leave the room and the table lifts up into the air and back towards the big radiation machine. The arms stretch out and make a full circle around me then they stop and the table tips back an inch or so and the machine continues circles around me. 

I lay there watching the tv on the ceiling that's playing classic rock and maybe make through a song and a half before the machine makes a tell-tale clunk that tells me I'm almost done. The clunk comes from the machines stress not from anything scheduled to tell me it's done, I've just noticed when I hear that the techs soon come back in to tell me I'm done. 

It's that easy. I feel nothing while it's happening. Then I go get dressed and drive home. The side effects however are starting to build. In the beginning, there weren't any which my doctor told me was usually the case. They were spot on with when they would hit, the end of week two. My stomach hates me, my bowels are irritable, and the fatigue is out of this world. I'm actually surprised I'm awake right now to type this. All I want to do is sleep. 

TMI moment but did you know that clear shit is a thing? Yeah, even with my long medical background, neither did I. I've never had to use the bathroom so much in my entire life, sometimes I'm scared to even go outside because it might hit and I'll have only moments to make to the bathroom. No, that's not something you NEEDED to know but now you do. That's more for my amusement than yours, haha. 

I've been dealing with the aftermath of chemo. My right arm is killing me, I have tendinopathy in the shoulder from having zero muscle tone after chemotherapy and trying to go back to normal living now that I physically can be up longer than a few minutes able to breathe, and not getting nauseous or light-headed. I feel like a little kid some days, ready to run but my body hates afterward. I guess I have to constantly remind myself that I'm still not normal, maybe I'll never be, but specifically, right now, I need to ease back into activities. Easier said than done, let me tell you. 

I truly hope the next two weeks fly by and that my symptoms don't get any worse. I'm very happy to not have any burns yet or extreme nausea. I know things could be a lot worse for me so even though things aren't always great, they aren't terrible. Thank God for small blessings!