Skin is Overrated but Magical Foam is Not
Stare into my armpit of DOOM!
Or so I keep telling myself. I sort of lost half of the skin in half of my armpit over the weekend. No pre-blister slowly going away, just BAM! Gone. I think it may have been because a shirt was rubbing me? I am just not quite certain how it went away, other than the fact that it did. Luckily my first day back at the hospital with the sore armpit was the day that I got to see my Radiation Oncologist. She cancelled all use of my fancy sparkly top for this part of the radiation (of course she saw me after I had already been radiated with it that day).
The doctor told me that everything will continue to do its thing for 7-10 days after they stop radiating, so she was basically letting me know that I will probably lose more skin. It feels like a blistered sunburn, not a pleasant thing, but they gave me a Mepilex dressing which is a thin sheet of foam cut to cover the area in my armpit that is sore, and it works like a champ. It doesn’t have any medication, but somehow the dressing itself really cuts down on the pain.
I have 3 more runs of the entire breast/armpit/collarbone neck area. Next Tuesday I will switch to what they call the “booster” for my last five zaps. This is where they will focus on my mastectomy scar only. I am hoping this means that the rest will finish doing the post-radiation radiating so that when I am done with all 6 weeks I won’t have too much continued deterioration of my skin.
I have had bouts of being tired throughout the radiation treatment, but this past week the tired seems to be accompanied with nausea and dizziness (which is completely not normal, so anyone undergoing radiation, this isn’t an expected side effect). I am not sure if it is being so tired that does it, or from being sore. I keep thinking I have the flu (maybe I do?), but this has been going on for over a week, so I am just not sure. It forces me to go back to taking it a bit more easy, which sucks because I was starting to feel more recovered and back to normal for awhile there, but I am getting so much closer to done it just isn’t worth fighting not feeling well for the end of this.
I keep telling myself that I only have to do this a little bit longer. I am getting close to being done with actual cancer treatment (unless you count the daily Tamoxifen for 5 years, but that is a pill rather than a hospital visit).
8 MORE treatments! I will then get a nice break until surgery on December 27..
