Hi everyone - Just back in from radiotherapy planning. All went OK, although the place was a building site as they are putting in a new machine and building the new accommodation. Everyone very pleasant, nurse was a bit useless I thought, but nothing actually wrong. Duly tattooed - much higher than I expected and the one just at necklace line looks like a tadpole. Anyway, came home, OH about to go back to work. Then all of a sudden I had this overwhelming emotion of anger. It was incredible. I never get angry. Such a shock! Just had to get out of the house and went for a walk in the park with tears streaming down my face and feeling like kicking something!!! The weirdest thing. Anyway, back home again now and back to normal. Not surprising, I know, but it felt so weird! Good luck everyone. Sarah
Hei Sarah,
I’ve been known to rant when angry - but only with long-suffering son - but now I find myself exploding into tirades about injustice and suffering and inequality that can go on for an hour. Stuff that I can usually approach - as an anthropologist - with a certain amount of detachment can drive me ballistic & friends & family alike are catching it. I’m pretty certain I am ‘canalising’ a lot of rage that I otherwise wouldn’t know how to deal with. Next time I feel it rising - I’m going to follow your example and get out of the house/room/whatever and go somewhere I can stride and weep it off. I think kicking something might be a good idea, too - something like a heavy cushion that doesn’t move too far after a hefty slug, so I can do it again immediately.
Congratulations on finishing chemo, by the way. Some of the rage might be connected to what you have already been through - because now, instead of a reward, some whole new shi* is hitting the fan. It must be hard to take. Let out the rage though - better out than in. Thinking of you.
Love, M-L
Hi Sarah
I felt a bit the same way when I started radiotherapy. I didnt have chemo first to endure either. I remember trying really hard to be compliant; not to move, stay in the right position etc and I just felt so pissed off and so very weary of everything to do with cancer. I felt like a spoilt brat who wanted to have a tantrum. Also, I think I found the tattoos a bit shocking and mine are only little dots, not as big as yours sounds. It is just another permanent reminder of what we have. Also, little things like the nurse’s attitude which you would probably brush off, can get right under your skin when you feel like this. I guess they see so many people like us, they become blase - well they shouldn’t. Its wrong. However, like everything else, radiotherapy becomes routine and you come to accept it. Lots of love and thinking of you, Cathy
Gad theres a thread about this one
started my rads this week , 2 days late as the initial planning was not correct !, back to the simulator top on and off on off , may as well walk around with nothing on. Then they couldnt find a doctor to sign the new planning etc all delays
Also theres about 5 people in the room, fair enough but when they are adjusting you and singing to the music thats playing I do feel like a piece of meat ! Then there are the small pleasantries when you are struggling to get your clothes back on , not sure I want to have a conversation . Think its the fact theres a couple of men there and they are all smiley and breezy.
I cme home and cried I was so p****ed off . Probably the the music more than anything else , james bond themes tunes and ‘watching girls go by’ . All a bit raunchy for the experience ! as I’m writing I’m seeing how farcical it looks. Also I got chatting to an old lady in the waiting room whos husband needs treatment. I listened to her for half an hour and comforted her when she was crying then I felt a bit angry as i’m sitting there in a wig waiting to go in with two young kids at home an she never asked me what I was doing there.
Maybe I looked like a counsellor !
oh well only 27 more to go 
Cally x
Hi Sarah,
That is so wierd. I finished FEC five and a half weeks ago and I went in for the rads planning just expecting it to be a breeze. After being treated so well during chemo I felt awful after the plannning session. I felt angry because I didn’t think they treated me like a person. I was ranting for ages after. What made me most angry was that they had pencilled me in to start three weeks after my chemo finished and I had planned to go on holiday (nothing booked just wanted a break). When I told them she said something like: " You might be as well just to press on with the rads and have the holiday at the end."
I felt like saying: Excuse me, have you just had the bloody chemo. Have you any idea how it feels etc etc etc.
Anyway Have had two weeks of rads now and all is well. The staff are lovely and do treat me like a person after all.
LornaXX
Sorry to hear about the anger, but I think it’s something that every one of us has had at some point or other. I had a good old rant at my son after he crashed his car… I think the words ‘as if I’ve not got enuff to bloody deal with’ came into the rant at some point… poor lad just sat there taking it muttering sorry every so often whilst nursing his poorly broken wrist. I did feel better afterward tho.
Hi All
When I had my first radiotherapy I felt like a piece of meat and not a person. I was really upset about it all having to lay down and be manoevered around by strangers is very upseting at first and when I think back it was one of the few times I cried, I felt so alone. You are right about them becoming blaze because I had to laugh at their choice of music on one occasion. It was Robbie Williams singing ‘I hope I am old before I die’ and it wasn;t even the radio it was a tape. Yes really, I am not joking.
Best wishes
Dawne
We could start a thread on what is the worst music we hear during radiotherapy. For me,it was “When will I see you again?” by the 3 degrees. played good and loud yesterday whilst I was being zapped. made me smile. They should play us some dvd’s as well. How about “Death becomes her”?
they played something by dusty springfield while i was having radiotherapy, i pointed out she’d died of breast cancer, and i wrote a letter of complaint about the way we were treated, at one point i was threatened as they thought i was going to break their machine. I was ordered to keep still and i gave them the vs up straight into their camera as i lay there.
i couldn’t wait to say goodbye
is that from a song/
mole
HI all
‘time to say goodbye’ isnt it ?
yes the music choice was so bad I’m actually now wondering if it was done on purpose . Keep the innapropriate song plays coming…
at least we can have a laugh about it.
Does anyone else go in there feeling detached. I feel like its happening to someone else. If only
Cally
Hi all
I finished rads last week and found the whole experience a real struggle. The people were very nice but, as others have said, it is so impersonal. The machine broke on one of my sessions whilst I was on it and they left me ‘up there’ whilst an engineer came in!! Luckily for me I had the standard issue blue gown so zipped up to cover my boobs. Did nothing for my confidence.
After 1 session I found myself at the CancerBackup place and burst in to tears - what a wuss!
Songs - how about ‘Voulez vous couchez avec moi se soir’ er - not on this bed, thanks! Or Abba’s Dancing Queen ‘having the time of my life …’
Hang in there everyone.
Lx
Hi Sarah and everyone else on this thread
Yep can totally relate to every thing on here… I’ve had 6 out of 20 rads and for some bizarre reason, even though mentally I felt quite detached from all the prodding, poking, shifting me about as if I’m on a bacon slicer, I suddenly wondered what the wet feeling was in my ear… turns out it was a big, fat tear. Now I always thought I was in touch with my emotions and thought I was feeling fine about radiotherapy but realising I was actually in tears on the machine, totally shocked me. I think the way I tend to cope is by zoning out, pretending not to be there by thinking of something else and imagining I’m just looking in from the outside. I wonder if this means I’m not really accepting what I’m really going through. I’d hate for this all to come back and bite me on the bum years down the line… but how do you know if you are really coping with stuff? I did wonder if the anger I felt when I scraped the alloy wheels on my new car was in actual fact really to do with all the treatment I’ve had… because how ridiculous to get uptight about a car when you’ve had the news you’ve got breast cancer, got no hair, scarred chest and undergone chemo and rads!! mm.
As for the songs, as I lay there yesterday it was ‘Super Trouper’! I didn’t feel much like a super trouper though. I remember when my sister’s little boy was in hospital (intensive care), her husband requested a song for them on hospital radio and you’ll never guess what they played… “I just died in your arms tonight”!! seriously! couldn’t believe it! Thankfully laughed it off but you’d think that sort of stuff would be banned from the playlist of a hospital radio wouldn’t you!
OK, lovely thread, made me feel sane (ish). Carrie x
Hello all,
Yes I have had my moments! Things that I would normally just let go - now seem to really niggle me!
I was having my radiotherapy the other day - when the nurse put something wet and cold on my breast - no explanation, so I am lying there thinking what on earth is that - so I ask…
She responds “Its just a liquid to bring out your tattoo to the surface more - oh, are you a worrier”
I lay there thinking (well I can’t actually quote what I was thinking - I don’t want to be barred from this forum!) I think I was quite taken aback - then I was angry with myself for not making some smart arse comment back at her insensitivity.
Nah of course I am not a worrier, I only have breast cancer, the world is my oyster! Lying there being manoevered around like a piece of meat, I should have got up, swung my bazookas about and started singing “my milkshake brings all the men to the bar” - me worried… bah…
Just scared witless that’s all, if I had any nails (thanks - Taxotere) I’d have chewed em off!
Hi inurdreamz2
You might be interested in having a look at BCC’s publication on radiotherapy before your treatment starts. Below is the link, you can either download a copy or order one on line. Hope it helps.
breastcancercare.org.uk/content.php?page_id=706
Kind regards,
Jo, Facilitator
I threw a wobbly at my planning session. After 8 cycles of chemo, 4 FEC and 4 TAX, I was completely exhausted and had to travel to London for the radio. By the time I got to St. Thomas’s having braved the rail network and heaving carriages and walked to the hospital with legs that would hardly carry me, I was ready to kill someone, lol! Then there was all the stuff they tell you about side effects and by the time they got to the bit where they said I would probably have to go without my prosthesis as my skin would be sore, I blew a gasket! Took my gown off and threw it at the nurse, told them I wasn’t going ahead with it, was fed up with the whole caboodle etc. etc. The doctor had to be called to calm me down.
Another thing that really p’d me off was that the horrible tattoos have to be in BLACK ink. I asked for brown so at least they would look similar to my own moles/freckles, but oh no, the only ink they use is black India Ink. WHY???
So I now have what look like three blackheads on my mastectomised chest.
As for the music - I had Ave Maria playing in the background on my first rads session, and lying there unable to move alone in the room, I felt as if I was lying in a pluddy chapel of rest!
Grrrrrrr
xxx
And I’ve just remembered a little story I read in the paper a couple of months back where a celebrity(can’t remember who now) recounted a story about the music played at his radiotherapy session.
He’d requested something by Frank Sinatra and a CD was duly put on…as he lay on the treatment table Frank’s voice suddenly came over the speakers…
“And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain…”
You’ve got to laugh haven’t you, lol!!!
xxx
Hi there Justme
I am sorry about laughing but the thought of you lying there with Ave Maria playing is so funny. Its a wonder they didnt play the funeral march as well. I still cannot believe how thoughtless some of the medical staff are. They see so much, they forget the individual who is lying there, scared to death. However, a good sense of humour (especially the black kind) is necessary to see you through!!
How about “Disco Inferno” with the lines “burn baby burn”??
HI Everyone - This is my first time to look back in on this thread since I started it, and thank all you wonderful ladies for the huge chuckle you have started my day with with all the music choices! I will have my ears fully tuned in when I get going - if I can hear any music over the building works!! But back to the reason I started this thread, it is a huge comfort to me (but not to any of you who also had to go through it) to realise that I am by no means alone for having had that great surge of anger. Perhaps it will help other women to know that this may not be an unexpected reaction to the mildly named “planning”!!
Justme, I know just what you mean about now looking like you have three black heads on your chest, although in my case the top one looks like a black ingrowing hair as it has a tail!! For some reason I had thought they would be around the scar area - never thought they would be so high up (never asked). Made me realise that I really had not thought (or found out) much at all about the radiotherapy, having got through the chemo I was very much thinking the worse it over … guess that’s why the emotional meltdown was such a shock! Anyway, yesterday I was completely fine again. OH can relax again too! He has been totally brilliant the whole time and he was so upset for me when I was so upset - often worse for those who love us I think.
Thanks for all your lovely replies. we’re a good team! Sarah
I’m on here earlier than most of you because Finland is 2 hours ahead - and I’ve also had a good giggle about music choices in times of stress. As for tattoos - I’m shaving my head before I start chemo next week, because my hair is very thick and even though I chopped it to my shoulders before surgery the onc reckons a cold cap is a waste of time. I’m hoping that re-growth might be faster this way. My messy waist-length hair has always been part of my identity. Onc hasn’t heard of anyone going deliberately bald as a prophylactic measure, so I can amuse myself by thinking of it as useful experiment. So when the bristles fall out anyway & I get the shiny pate, as is likely, I’m going to have ‘the finger’ tattooed on the back of my head - you know, clenched fist, middle finger raised. I’m not a tattoo kind of person - but this one will give me a belly laugh.
Cheers all. M-L