Radiation has finally begun for my wife. Several weeks had passed since the encouraging news after the mastectomy. Once anyone has time to reflect before a treatment, the more time the imagination has to run amok.
The internet is mined with all sorts of nuggets—good, bad, true, false–and it’s no different with radiation treatment.
It can burn your skin just like staying on the beach too long.
It can sap your energy just like chemotherapy did.
It can make your hair fall out again, which would be a shame since my wife’s hair is just now peeking through her scalp.
Her first radiation treatment wasn’t all that bad, actually. She had two nurses attending just on her, unlike chemo when she was one of ten or so patients under the care of one nurse who was stressing out from all the work.
If my wife felt a bit cold she immediately received as many heated blankets as she wanted, unlike the treatment room on the other side of the building where blankets often were in short supply.
They radiate several spots around her chest but they are careful to shield areas they had already zapped before treating the rest.
The process does not take very long at all. I began writing this Cancer Chronicle instalment when she went back for the treatment, and she came out as I was beginning to write this paragraph.
That’s progress which gives us hope.