I’m strongest when I’m weak (Part 1: Radiation)

Yes, you read that correctly.  Every cancer patient, and likely every person that battles a long term illness, will agree with that statement.  The side effects of the chemo, radiation, and years of meds are not for the faint of heart.  If you are on this journey, you will be stronger than you ever knew you could be.

My journey did not take me down the path of chemo and I feel blessed to have skipped that step.  But I can speak to the radiation and medication side effects.

Radiation lasted a month.  Every day.  Every day I would show up and get changed behind the curtain in the radiation room.  The hospital gown has to open to the front to show what no one sees when you are fully dressed, the map of marks across your chest that tell the nurses where to target the radiation.  Some patients have tattoo marks for this step, but mine were made with permanent markers and stickers that I would pray didn’t disappear in the shower.  I lay on the table and settle my upper back and arms into the mold that has been custom made to fit me and hold me in the right place while undergoing radiation treatment.  My arms are over my head in the mold, not the most comfortable position but necessary to give the technicians a clear shot of the area they are focused on.  The nurse gently opens my gown and exposes the “map” to position the machine before disappearing behind the concrete wall that protects her from the radiation aimed at my chest.  As a person that grew up with a strong Catholic background, I discover that a single radiation treatment lasts 27 Hail Marys.  That’s 810 Hail Marys over the course of radiation treatments.

Once the treatment session is done, the nurse helps me out of the mold and safely off the table before I disappear behind the curtain to get dressed.  A few things about radiation treatments:

1. use all the lotions and creams and when you think you have used enough use some more.  Skin breakdown from radiation is painful and ugly.

2. Stay hydrated.  Same as with the lotions… when you think you’ve hydrated enough, hydrate more.  Radiation zaps you and you need even more fluids.  I struggled with hydrating enough and felt my heart racing at times because I was so dehydrated.

3. Get yourself some inexpensive shirts, bras, sleepwear.  The creams will ruin clothes.  Ruin the inexpensive stuff, not your good stuff.

4. Rest!  And then rest again.  Radiation will make you exhausted.  For those that have had babies, remember that first few months of pregnancy??? Yes, that kind of exhaustion throughout your radiation treatments and at least two months after.   

5. Breathe.  It’s scary, but you CAN do this.