First Encounter With The Beam!

Monday! Monday!

My first encounter with the “beam!” Feeling pretty good overall. My leg has been healing nicely. I have a scar approximately 11” long that starts on my hip and extends just shy of my mid thigh. The area where the tumor was removed is sunken in and quite honestly… from a side view, it looks like a Sports Illustrated Model‘s hip and butt! As my girls say “oooo la, la!” Lol! BUT from a front view it looks like a liposuction gone bad! Haha!! I guess I will learn to walk sideways and offer the side view when possible! My hair is growing in like a field of wild weeds! In fact, hair is growing everywhere! I now have to shave the legs and get eyebrow shapings! Not having full eyebrows for months, one would think I’d keep every hair possible, but no…. Weight, well that’s my next goal to start working out and eating better. Just a goal for now! It will be difficult with gourmet chefs like Sonia and Dottie around! Maybe it’s best to leave this goal until after radiation. :>) I still have hot flashes and often experience Chemo Brain but it feels nice to feel well!

So here’s how my day went:

Since my first appointment wasn’t scheduled until 3:00, I decided to do more research on cancer. So I spent 4 hours in the Cancer Center Library! Now feeling more informed and again taking an active role in my health care, I walked to the Radiation Oncology Center!

My first day! My memory served me well, I went to the computer, checked myself in, changed into a gown and waited in the Patient Waiting Room, just as I was instructed three weeks prior.

I waited. And waited. And waited. It was now 4:00! I was ready, like beam me up Scottie but they weren’t. Finally, at 4:10, they came to get me! I hopped on the table, slid into the molding that was made weeks prior and guess what?…It was too big! No, I didn’t lose weight but the swelling went down in my leg and now nothing lined up! So, there I lay for 2 ½ more hours while they positioned me, took pictures, (some I couldn’t help myself and posed,haha) and repositioned me and more pictures, until at last, 6:30….they started the treatment that lasted for 20 minutes! I felt nothing! I layed still in my mold as this machine moved around me, aiming the beams at my thigh, hip and groin…to include the ovaries. I just ask, how can something not hurt be effective? Hmmm!

And so you have it, my first day of radiation!

Knowing Grandma and Grandpa Paharik are in Tennessee again for two weeks caring for the girls, I will sleep well tonight!

Love and miss all!