The last push

I’ve been amazed with the speed of the NHS throughout this experience and they haven’t failed to impress me again. After confirmation that I was having 5 days radiotherapy to finish my treatment, I was in for my planning with the radiotherapy team within 48 hours. For those of you who don’t know, radiotherapy is like the one that’s all mouth and no trousers in the treatment regime. It sounds scary but it’s actually the one that has limited short term side effects, takes minutes and is the one you’d rather take on ahead of chemo and the op.

Nevertheless it’s still scary. I’ve always thought that everything I have been through on this journey has been made easier by the fact I have done all of it with either Sam, Becky or both.  I hope by writing my blogs it will help others who have to go through it. 

The most important thing I have to tell you about radiotherapy is that I now have 4 tattoos! I can now tick that box on all those Facebook questionnaires, I am truly edgy! Ive got 4 pin point dots where my boob used to be, which the radiotherapists say help them to line up the proton beams on the radiotherapy machine. These were tattooed on me at my planning appointment which involved a CT scan to set this up. I actually thought they were winding me up about the tattoos so when I was laughing my head off saying ‘yes very funny’, the two nurses just stared back quizzically at me like i’d just come from a funny farm.I guess on reflection they were just looking at me thinking she does realise she’s got a massive scar where her boob used to be and she’s worrying about 4 tiny dots. 

The actual radiotherapy started today and it took minutes! I behaved myself and took it all very seriously. I’d already embarrassed myself earlier in the day as I’d asked the nurse at the countess to take my steri strips off as I was being a wimp. They must have worked themselves off in the night and she just lifted them off like they weren’t even attached. I made her promise not to laugh about me with the other nurses.

The radiotherapy itself was nerve wracking but only because it was the first one and I didn’t know what to expect. It’s a fairly simple process but in order to limit damage to your heart and lungs you have to hold your breath for 20 seconds at a time while they zap you. The effects of the radio don’t kick in for about ten days and then it’s similar to bad sunburn apparently. They gave me some cream to apply twice a day, some exercises to do to prevent your scars seizing up and a list of dos and don’ts. Can you believe they actually felt the need to tell me not to sunbathe topless. I reminded them they’d just seen what was left of my boob on the machine and that it would actually never ever again cross my mind to do that ever again!

So that’s day 1 of radiotherapy done, just 4 more days to go. I finish all my treatment once and for all Tuesday and I can’t bloody wait. I’ve nearly done it, I’ve really nearly done it!!