Radiation

As I write this, I finished radiation about 3 months ago. While I had radiation it was every day Monday through Friday. Monday was doctor day, where I saw the doctor to go over any symptoms and get a report of my blood counts. Wednesday was blood day, they had to draw blood every Wednesday.

I had a little routine. I would take Preston and Lola (her Mom agreed to car pool with me) to preschool. Then I would hop onto Interstate 99 for the 30 minute drive to Mt Nittany Hospital in State College PA. Once at the hospital, (they had special parking for the radiation patients that was close to the door) I would go inside and change into a hospital gown and robe. I would then proceed to the waiting room.

The waiting room was a great place. They had these really yummy cookies along with a fridge with soda, ensure and pudding. They also had cold water, coffee and hot chocolate. And fresh fruit. There was a tv and plenty of magazines to read. Since I went at the same time everyday and most other folks did too I made friends in the waiting room. I would chat with them. We would compare treatments and how our skin was reacting to the radiation. We would comment on their promptness or tardiness. There were also these wonderful volunteers that would also talk to pass the time. I truly loved the volunteers. Gretchen was a previous flight attendant and had fabulous stories to share with us. And BJ made everyone an origami crane complete with a little message of how the crane represents hope. There was a patient named Marty. She kind of reminded me of a hippy. She always spoke her mind. They had cameras in the waiting room. She thought it would be fun to do Twister or line dance to see what kind of response we would get. We never got the chance to do that.

The staff was a little slow to warm up to, but once I did. I quite enjoyed chatting with them as well.

Upon walking into the room you walk down a little hallway and here are the pictures you see. They appeared to be transparent with some sort of lighting behind them.
What a nice walk huh. Now onto the room. It was a very large room with a narrow table and machine. There were counters and cupboards along one wall.


The white piece was my own piece of foam. They had made a mold of my arm. It was very important that I was in the same position every day. I had tiny tattoo marks put on me. There were lasers that they used to line me up.

See how narrow the table was. this was kind of scary when they made me lay on my side for the last few "boost" treatments that I had.

Here are some of the other patient's foam molds. At the time I was going there was about 45 people receiving radiation. They were open from 7 am till 8 pm. What a long day. They had enough people to split up the day so no one was working the entire day.
Here I am on the table. I would uncover my breast for the lining up process, but then they would cover me with a warm sheet for the radiation. I had to lay there for about 10 - 15 minutes. They had a radio playing and I often found it tempting to want to move to the music. Or I could look up at this. Isn't this beautiful. It was an oak tree.

I did get sun burnt pretty bad on my arm pit area. I had special cream and cool patches to put on the area. At 3 months out I am a nice golden tan on 1 side.

I had a check up 1 month post radiation and everything looked good. They told me to come back in 6 months.