What it feels like to have radiation
Back when I started chemotherapy, I posted here: http://malawry.livejournal.com/139864.html about the experience. In that vein,
Unlike chemotherapy, radiation therapy is a daily experience. (I only had chemo every other week, and that's considered "dose dense"--some people go every 3 weeks or even every month depending on their cancer and what drugs they're being given.) Also unlike chemotherapy, radiation therapy only takes about 15 minutes (chemo took 3-5 hours per session, depending on the cocktail and how busy the chemo ward was).
I show up at the same time every day at the doctor's office. The technician calls me back and I take off my clothes from the waist up and slip into a hospital gown. I am then escorted into a room with a thick, heavy door (E. suggests it's made of lead). I take the gown off my left arm and lay down, exposing my left breast, my sternum and my left arm. I lift my left arm over my head and grab a bar that's above my head so I can hold my arm in the right position easily. A piece of tape is placed over my left armpit to keep it mostly out of the beam.
The technician pushes the bench back under the machine's arms. Imagine a letter C: the top arm is a flat disk out of which the radiation beam comes out, while the bottom is a rectangle that I think is designed to stop the beam from going past my body (or maybe it helps to focus the beam). The bench slides right in between the top and bottom arms of the C. I can see my reflection in the disk and there are laser lights above me and to either side. There's a lamp in the disk that allows the technician to see a lighted shape on my skin indicating where the beam will hit; this shape is programmed based on some MRI mapping I had done recently and is formed by some rods inside the disk that adjust. The tech uses the lasers and the lighted shape to line me up properly, and she usually draws a line or two on my skin with a Sharpie type pen to be sure she's in the right spot. And then she tells me not to move except to breathe, and she leaves the room.
The lamp in the disk goes out, and the machine makes a warning-type buzzer sound. That's the sound that indicates I'm getting radiation. It's about 15-20 seconds long. The tech is watching from outside the room, and she uses a remote to move the machine so the disk is at my back. I can hear the rods inside the disk adjusting to a different shape. A minute or two later I get the buzzer again, and my back is radiated.
The disk is then moved back to the front, and another spot in the center of my chest is radiated. And finally the disk moves slightly to my left and radiates into the lower part of my armpit. Each blast is about 15-20 seconds, and adjusting between each blast takes just a couple of minutes.
Every other day, a wet washcloth is placed on my breast for the third and fourth blasts of radiation. This changes where the beam focuses and helps to ensure the beam "gets" every potential cancer cell.
At no time do I feel much of anything. I imagine being blasted whenever I hear that buzzer but I really have no sensation from it. Sometimes I imagine this isn't really doing anything because I don't feel anything, but I know realistically that this is simply untrue.
After the four blasts of radiation, the tech comes back in and pulls the bench out of the C. I put my arm back in the gown, go back to the changing room, put on my shirt, and go home.
I've had 4 of 28 treatments now. So far, no real effects, though my skin feels tighter around where I've been radiated and my left breast is notably warmer than my right. (Though that was true before, due to the infection I was dealing with--my left breast was still a little warmer the morning I started getting radiation.) It's coming, though: sunburn and fatigue. There is no avoiding the former and it's supposed to be the worst effect most folks experience. After what I've been through, I think I can handle sunburn--even a bad sunburn in a place like my armpit. I have a special cream that's supposed to help soothe my skin to mitigate the effects.
Unlike chemotherapy, radiation therapy is a daily experience. (I only had chemo every other week, and that's considered "dose dense"--some people go every 3 weeks or even every month depending on their cancer and what drugs they're being given.) Also unlike chemotherapy, radiation therapy only takes about 15 minutes (chemo took 3-5 hours per session, depending on the cocktail and how busy the chemo ward was).
I show up at the same time every day at the doctor's office. The technician calls me back and I take off my clothes from the waist up and slip into a hospital gown. I am then escorted into a room with a thick, heavy door (E. suggests it's made of lead). I take the gown off my left arm and lay down, exposing my left breast, my sternum and my left arm. I lift my left arm over my head and grab a bar that's above my head so I can hold my arm in the right position easily. A piece of tape is placed over my left armpit to keep it mostly out of the beam.
The technician pushes the bench back under the machine's arms. Imagine a letter C: the top arm is a flat disk out of which the radiation beam comes out, while the bottom is a rectangle that I think is designed to stop the beam from going past my body (or maybe it helps to focus the beam). The bench slides right in between the top and bottom arms of the C. I can see my reflection in the disk and there are laser lights above me and to either side. There's a lamp in the disk that allows the technician to see a lighted shape on my skin indicating where the beam will hit; this shape is programmed based on some MRI mapping I had done recently and is formed by some rods inside the disk that adjust. The tech uses the lasers and the lighted shape to line me up properly, and she usually draws a line or two on my skin with a Sharpie type pen to be sure she's in the right spot. And then she tells me not to move except to breathe, and she leaves the room.
The lamp in the disk goes out, and the machine makes a warning-type buzzer sound. That's the sound that indicates I'm getting radiation. It's about 15-20 seconds long. The tech is watching from outside the room, and she uses a remote to move the machine so the disk is at my back. I can hear the rods inside the disk adjusting to a different shape. A minute or two later I get the buzzer again, and my back is radiated.
The disk is then moved back to the front, and another spot in the center of my chest is radiated. And finally the disk moves slightly to my left and radiates into the lower part of my armpit. Each blast is about 15-20 seconds, and adjusting between each blast takes just a couple of minutes.
Every other day, a wet washcloth is placed on my breast for the third and fourth blasts of radiation. This changes where the beam focuses and helps to ensure the beam "gets" every potential cancer cell.
At no time do I feel much of anything. I imagine being blasted whenever I hear that buzzer but I really have no sensation from it. Sometimes I imagine this isn't really doing anything because I don't feel anything, but I know realistically that this is simply untrue.
After the four blasts of radiation, the tech comes back in and pulls the bench out of the C. I put my arm back in the gown, go back to the changing room, put on my shirt, and go home.
I've had 4 of 28 treatments now. So far, no real effects, though my skin feels tighter around where I've been radiated and my left breast is notably warmer than my right. (Though that was true before, due to the infection I was dealing with--my left breast was still a little warmer the morning I started getting radiation.) It's coming, though: sunburn and fatigue. There is no avoiding the former and it's supposed to be the worst effect most folks experience. After what I've been through, I think I can handle sunburn--even a bad sunburn in a place like my armpit. I have a special cream that's supposed to help soothe my skin to mitigate the effects.