Hi all, I had lumpectomy and SNB 14th May. Clear margins and lymph nodes clear. I’ve got my oncology appointment for rads on 13th June
Julie xx
Hi Julie Good luck I had my appointment on Tuesday got letter yesterday. Planning appointment this Wednesday and starts on 19th June all happening quickly now . Last few months has been a whirlwind . Keep me updated how you’re getting on. ?xx
Hi Julie
I just wrote a long reply and the iPad froze! Grr. I’ve had my first three treatments out of 15 and now have the weekend off. So far it’s been a doddle. The worst thing has been the uncomfortable ‘bed’ as I’m very skinny right now but the treatment is quick and painfree. More time is spent getting undressed and dressed again. It’s also a pain having to go to the hospital every day, with appointments all over the place - very hard to organise a life! The equipment is pasted with dinky dolphin and octopus stickers and it was a salutary reminder to me that even children undergo this treatment!
My oncology appointment was a talk through the treatment, with diagrams a 5 yo could have produced to show how they avoid damage to organs close by, and signing yet another form. There was also time for questions (hence the diagrams) so maybe think about it and go prepared. This was followed by a simple CT scan (no need for fluids and no injections) to work out the perfect positioning for radiotherapy and three of the tiniest tattoos (I can actually only find one, under my sternum). The talk about possible side effects and how to care for the area being treated was done by the radiographer just before the first treatment.
I’m not naive - anything that could have gone wrong in chemo went wrong, including neutropoenic sepsis and neuropathy - and I’m ready for soreness and exhaustion but I have friends who were barely affected and I hope I’m lucky like them. If I’m not, like with the chemo, surely it’s worth it to have that additional protection against any recurrence? Certainly my chemo oncologist saw radiotherapy as the most effective of all the treatments. So good luck. Your prognosis looks very good so a little discomfort and inconvenience (and a lot of napping) is a small price to pay for the reassurance the treatment will give you. Whether I’ll say the same in two weeks time is another matter ;)