It’s been a while since we had an update, but in this case, no news is good news. Allison has just completed three week of radiation (every weekday) and it went pretty well. She can definitely feel the radiation as it is being pumped into her, but overall she has felt quite good. We shall see how it continues to go through the course of her treatment. If it is like chemotherapy, she will continue to get progressively more tired as the treatment schedule progresses.
Right now, she is starting to feel a little more of the cumulative effects of the treatment, so we are scheduling meals to be brought in on Mondays and Thursdays for the majority of March. Log in to her calendar at http://www.carecalendar.org, using the Helper Login of 23876 and the Security Code of 8103 to sign up for a date.
Allison continues to be so grateful for all the rides for herself to the radiation appointments and in transporting the kids to and fro. It has helped so much. There has been many times she has not been able to get home from the hospital in time to transfer Mackenzie. The help for the other kids after school has also been much appreciated.
Who could ask for a better community of friends to help and rescue during this difficult year. You are all the best.
For those of you who are interested, here are some of the interesting facts she has learned recently from her caregivers and also from experiencing it for 3 weeks:
1. All but a few mastectomy patients have the same dosage of radiation. There is a certain amount that they can give you. It is the angles/arch and positioning of the dose that are fingerprinted just to you. The recipe can vary slightly throughout the course of treatment, but they put a big screen up on the wall and it will list numbers. Some of Allison’s are 94.7/11.4, plus 3 other big numbers. This relates to the radiation somehow. It is interesting how they get you positioned. She have 2 different angles and has found that the one that comes directly over the chest wall doesn't bother her as much. The other one comes in on the side of her chest, under her arm and seems less protected and that is the one she really can feel.
2. You don't always feel the radiation. But when you do it is a weird feeling of a burning going through you. They do put on a special bandage over the chest to protect and help absorb some of the radiation. The most intense spots are where the beam directly goes into the body. The bandage is thick/gauze/ and jelly-like. It takes longer to set/position her with the machine, then program in the other numbers, and put in the beam reflectors than it takes to actually have the treatment.
3. With each treatment they take pictures so they know exactly what is going on. The doctor told Allison that she has a textbook perfect score so far. He gave her an A+ for her ability to relax and lay still long enough for a treatment. The machine calculates for breathing but twitching and moving will adversely affect the treament. By moving you put your vital organs at risk. Holding still and relaxing put you in less than a 1% risk.
4. Only 10% of all cancer patients have the molecular structure that Allison has. It just happens to be the exact make-up that chemo loves to kill. Chemo works at different degrees and percentages for almost all cancer, but Allison was told she just happens to be the best "BANG FOR IT'S BUCK." She also has a (HER 2+) and the chemo I will need to be taking until October (Herception) kills this variety very well. Herception has only been around for almost 10 years. So they tell me that if she had this type of cancer 15 to 20 ago she would NOT have had a very good chance of survival.
5. Sometimes it seems like the beams are on longer and/or shorter. This does not affect the amount of radiation she gets. An example would be if all the air conditioners were on pulling a lot of electricity, the machine would not be able to put out as much in the normal time and would adjust to deliver the dosage amount of radiation and stop when that was reached.
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