No Deep Breaths!

I did it again. I let way too much time pass between posts and now I have a lot to say. I’ll try to keep this short(ish). :) After my last post I had my first appointment with my radiation oncologist, Barbara Fowble. She came highly recommended from both my friend Robin, who was her patient during her first bout with breast cancer, as well as Dr. Jeske. Dr. Fowble is at UCSF and if you’ve kept up with my blog from the beginning, you may remember that UCSF was not on my good side for quite some time. But Dr. Fowble is different, she’s amazing.

During my first appointment I met her, her RN, and a resident who shadows her all day. UCSF is a teaching hospital and when they asked me if the resident could take part in the exam, I told them, “Absolutely. I know how this works, I watch a lot of Grey’s Anatomy.” That first appointment was pretty standard. We talked about how my chemo went, how I was recovering from surgery and what to expect from radiation. The list of side effects from radiation is short when compared to chemo. I might experience a little fatigue but mostly, I’ll just have to deal with redness & pain on the left side of my chest. The schedule for radiation is very different than chemo, too. I had 6 chemo treatments total, one every three weeks. Radiation will take place 5 days a week for 5 weeks. I’m going to get to know that radiation oncology department at UCSF very well!

The good thing about the radiation appointments is that they’re very quick! The actual treatment takes about 5-10 minutes and I’ll be able to pop in before work each day to get it out of the way. I’ll walk in, scan my card, go change into a gown and wait for the nurse, get my radiation on, and then I’m off.

I had my planning appointment last week where they did all the measurements for the machine and gave me my gorgeous radiation tattoos. I lovingly refer to them as my "prison tattoos". The tattoos are tiny dots … one on each side of my rib cage (to line me up straight on the table), one right in the middle of my breast bone and then four around my left breast. Because my skin is so light, they look like tiny blackheads on my chest. Attractive!

The first portion of the planning appointment only took about 20 minutes but it felt like so much longer. I was topless (of course) and had to lay completely still on the table, arms up over my head and was not allowed to take deep breaths. The tech, Vincent, said the measurements he was taking had to be very precise and every time I took a deep breath, my chest would move. Not exactly ideal when he’s taking measurements for radiation directed straight at my chest! I was instructed that I needed to only take shallow breaths, which obviously made me feel like I needed to take deep breaths even more. Vincent kept saying very sternly, “No deep breaths!”

The second part of my planning appointment was to get a scan of my chest so Dr. Fowble could see exactly where my lungs and heart are located. She’ll have to plan the radiation so that it hits the spot where the tumor was but isn’t aimed at my heart or lungs. The planning is so precise that she’ll be able to get it within a millimeter of where it needs to be. My first radiation appointment is next Monday, September 14 and, if I can count correctly, that means my last appointment will be Friday, October 16. Here we go!

I’ve continued on with my Herceptin treatments every three weeks with Dr. Jeske and have also started my hormone therapy. I’m still getting the Lupron shots every four weeks to suppress my ovaries and have also added in an aromatase inhibitor called Arimidex. My body is in chemically induced menopause. I haven’t had to deal with many hot flashes but I do get really hot when I sleep. I wake up with a sweaty head most nights. You don’t realize how much your head sweats until you don’t have any hair. We always have to sleep with the fan on now and I’m constantly kicking the sheets off.  Once I wake up in the middle of the night, it can be hard for me to fall back asleep. This has been the worst side effect of the hormone therapy. I’ve had other minor side effects but nothing major and certainly nothing that is getting in the way of my daily life.

I’ll be sure to continue the updates once I’ve started radiation. I’ve been told that the first few weeks don’t really have any side effects and that the pain doesn’t really start until the last couple weeks. Time will tell. I think my next blog post will be an “FAQ” … if you have any questions you want answered, send them my way! I’m pretty much an open book so nothing is off limits.

Xo,

Ali