Day 224 - Radiation Update

As one of my radiation technicians was replacing the stickers on my chest, she said "wow, your skin looks great."  She proceeded to say that they've been known to remove skin when removing stickers at this point in the radiation process.  Shudder.  Thankfully my skin is not coming off, and apparently is not burning too badly in the grand scheme of things.

I have 14 more treatments total.  9 of those will be radiation to the full field (same radiation that I have been getting since the beginning), and 5 will concentrate only on the surgical cavity.  The surgical cavity treatments are called boosts and are intended to provide some extra love right to the area where my tumor once was.

My radiation team started the planning for the boosts today.  I had a CT scan and a second set of stickers placed near my current ones.  I can tell that I am becoming more relaxed as these treatments wear on because I fell asleep for a few minutes during the CT scan.  I was covered in heated blankets and surrounded by whirring white noise so why the heck not.

While I have not had any complications or setbacks, radiation continues to take a bit of an emotional toll.  I am often just plain sad when leaving radiation which seems very strange to me but not entirely unexpected.  My therapist warned me that fatigue can mask itself as depression at times so to be aware of that and not too alarmed if it seems as though I am experiencing some depression.  I think that is exactly what is happening - fatigue is showing up in a different way. I'm not alarmed, and I don't try to block any emotions that pop up.

I see my therapist tomorrow and plan to run that past her during our appointment.  I do not have any traditional fatigue at this point, and I really hope that the trend continues.  I have been bracing myself for massive exhaustion, and it just has not happened.  Of course, it still could, but I am glad that it has not so far.