RadioGaga

What can I say? Radiotherapy is very boring.

I am 3 down and 15 to go. I have to drive an approximate 45 mile round trip to get there and back, day in day out. I think of it as a 'job'; I commute in and I commute out.

I have cancer 'fatigue' now. I am bored of having treatment, I am bored of having no hair, I am bored of the whole thing. That sounds flippant, I know, but I have given most of this year up to having the bloody cancer and I am on the last bit of the treatment journey now.

I think it is probably the reason why I don't check in on the blog very often too? There isn't that much to say really. Oh, apart from the process of having radiotherapy that is; you are a body and a piece of meat being irradiated with protons and glance rays. You lay on the board under the machines, the nurses poke, prod and move your torso around and measure you with lasers along your little tattoo lines to make sure the rays only get to the tumour beds and surrounding area.

To be honest, it is magic. You don't see or feel anything yet the protons are going in to the defined area and killing any stray cells left over from chemo and surgery. Hopefully, there aren't any but by having radio you reduce the chances of the cancer coming back in those areas by 40% or something. You have to do it. You'd be a fool not to!

Status report:

Fuzzy hair on head. Not enough to not cover it up yet but hopefully, in a month or so. there will be enough to say I am Sinead's twin again.

Bloody hair on legs and underarms again! One positive thing about chemo is the lack of body hair...saved a fortune on waxing and razors this last 6 months.

Still carrying a stone of chemo-gained weight. I would very much like to start exercising and dieting it off, but can't due to the nature of radiotherapy; you need to stay the same weight so the measurements of your body are the same for irradiation area. Poo. Best Friend says she has also put on a stone the last 6 months. She says it is 'sympathy weight' with me...

Scars are good. Radio may blow them up and cause lumps and bumps in them. Hope not. Mind you radio in itself can cause cancer and long term side effects. I am, after all, being irradiated.

Movement in right arm and shoulder at about 90% normal. I think. It is stiffer in the evenings, but I am now sleeping on my side again. Hurruh!

Headwise ok. Still counting myself 'lucky'. Lucky that I caught it early; lucky that I have not overly suffered; lucky that there is a good chance that I will survive 2010. People think I am 'odd' when I say I am 'lucky', but I am. I must have come into contact with other cancer patients who won't survive 2010...

I have to move in 3-4 weeks time. Most of the docs and nurses told me 'you can't' when I said I had to move staright after radiotherapy. 'Can't'? They think I am physically incapable. Me? Physically incapable? Pah, I am not stupid but I am already doing the stuff I was doing pre-surgery. Might not be weight training, but perfectly capable of packing boxes!

I suppose I am coming to the end of this blog soon. I never intended it to be anything more than a journal of my experiences, thoughts and feelings for the treatment journey. Something to stand out there in cyberspace that perhaps another person on the same journey might discover and laugh/cry at. I might, just might, read it all back in a few weeks before I sign off for good.

'To get through the hardest journey one only has to take one step at a time, but one must keep on stepping' - Chinese Proverb