Monday, September 9, 2013

Radiation

So I am a MAJOR slacker when it comes to blogging! Yes I am almost 2 1/2 weeks post radiation treatment! I know that I said I was going to write about this a few weeks ago but I am just now getting to it! So lets see where should I start? 

I started radiation July 8th! I was so scared! I had no idea what to expect at all!!
Radiation Machine

My get up!
So I was very nervous!! I shouldn't have been though! I think it was because I didn't know what to expect with my treatments so the unknown was scary to me. That first day I didn't know that my treatment had started until the techs told me that I was 2/3 of the way done! I was like serious?!?! What the hell was I nervous about?!


This is the first day of my radiation. I got drawn on and my skin had no effects of course lol.

So during my radiation my hands started tingly and my lymphedema did start acting up. I can't really say when I noticed my skin changing from the treatments but it sure did change! I was tired but not as tired as chemo put me. I was in pain and I am not going to lie about that BUT my pain didn't start to happen till the last few weeks of radiation. 

These next few photos are going to show you the progression of the radiation that it has on the skin. These are not a week by week but missing a few week in-between. 


















 So as you can see it was very painful. It seriously was like the worst sunburn EVER!! The worst parts of this burn was my collar bone and right under my armpit! Those HURT bad!!

I had 6 1/2 weeks of treatment, I went in Monday - Friday. My last five treatments were very quick and easy. All it was was a booster to my scar. I prayed that my skin wouldn't break and it didn't! I did start to peel and that was it! It was so hard to put lotion on my chest because I still have issues with touching my scar. I am not sure if you can notice or not but my skin did tighten up and now my chest looks nice to me! With my radiation if I decide to have reconstruction surgery it is going to be PAINFUL!! To have tissue expanders placed! OUCH!

I have chemo tomorrow and I see my oncologist! I hope we will have an appt for my pet scan. Right now the only treatment that I do is my chemo every 3 weeks! I hope and pray that my cancer is still responding to my herceptin only and hasn't spread.

Oh I want to show you all my hair!!
June 28th 

June/July 

August 31st.

My hair is coming in and I am still getting use to it. I wish my hair was growing in faster but I will take what I have. It took a while for me to get use to it but it is growing on me, lol.

Regina and I
This summer I got to meet another Pink Sister who has family out here! It was AWESOME!!! I have many pink sisters around the world and we support, encourage, pray and love each other. The bonds between us is amazing. It is like no other! I am grateful that this horrible disease/illness has brought us together.

I am still gaining energy but I still have my days where I have very low energy. I feel better than what I did during chemo. My body is still recovering from radiation though. Thank you all for keeping me in your prayers. Please continue to pray for me as I don't know much more about the next steps for my treatment. The unknown is always scary for me because I am already at stage 4. I want my results to come back good. 

Well until next time everyone! Thank you! Love you all!