First Day of Radiation Done!
Today has been emotionally exhausting, not a frequent description I have often used. Physically it has been a pretty good day, who knows what to chalk the difference up to. I started thinking seriously about today last night, mostly fearful of how brain radiation might change my personality or ability to have normal conversations or laugh at jokes or hold on to short term memories (which, honestly, has never been my strength). But it has been scary to think about living with the essence of who I am and it changing in my late 30s. I know a lot of people give up a lot things in life (limbs, loved ones, freedoms) but I have had an easy life up until 2ish years ago. I got my first bee sting 4 summers ago, I still have never had a cavity or broken a bone, things like that. One of the most difficult challenges in this cancer journey for me has been to face the limitations that are now in my life. I’m thankful for the ease and relative painlessness I’ve experienced but I don’t have practice in dealing with hard news about my body’s decay. It has been difficult to know how to deal with days like today.
This morning when my alarm went off, I couldn’t quit hitting snooze. Not necessarily because I was tired but mostly because I just didn’t want to face today. I couldn’t escape the fear that today would bring about the beginning of something permanent, something I don’t get options for but something I just don’t want to do. As scary as chemo felt, I quickly realized that it was poison, but I won’t carry it around forever. The poison has left my body. It seemed terrifying that I’m walking into radiation with the possibility that I’ll be willingly changing who I am. Forever. And there are no parallel other options for me to choose. Like a child, (oh, how many times a day do we face this with our boys??) I don’t feel like I get a choice with what’s in front of me, I just have to face it because someone else told me this is the best thing for me to do today. I finally said this out loud to Jason, which kinda helped to articulate one of the things I’ve been dreading. I know that there is a lot of data affirming that radiation is the best thing for me in this state, there’s nothing better in science or medicine that will help me today, but I still don’t want to do it.
Jason and I got the boys to school and then walked on a trail system together this morning. Where I told him some of my fears and reminded him to keep joking with me even if I don’t seem to get the joke. I asked some of my specific questions about how today’s treatment would go, some of the questions he could answer and some he couldn’t. But it was settling to get some answers. He doesn’t have much direct patient interaction, especially with patients getting my type of treatment.
As he put it, he wanted to go “through the front door” today. He didn’t want to be looking over everyone’s shoulder. I really like that about him. While he is in charge of managing some of the staff there, he speaks highly of his coworkers and their abilities. He believes they are capable and don’t need his hand holding to do their jobs. He believed that before I became a cancer patient. They treat a lot of people every day and I like to think they would make sure they are treating each patient with care. There are a nerdy amount of electrons flying around these people!
We got to the appointment on time, got everything settled. Which is a big part of how I operate, I hate being late! The actual setup and lying on the table was quicker than I anticipated, the staff offered everything they could to make this physically easier, and it went smoothly. I’m scheduled to go in every weekday for 3 weeks and then another brain MRI in 6ish weeks. We were driving away after an hour. It really was quick, painless, and fairly unlike most medical experiences I’ve had. Certainly very unlike the long medical oncology appointments that I’ve had so much experience with the last couple years. Jason and I went out to lunch together and finished out the day. Tonight we took the kids out for ice cream after dinner which is pretty unusual but it felt like we needed to celebrate together after today. I’m glad the day is over, it paved the way for my next few weeks. Fatigue and hair loss are side effects of this radiation but honestly(!) I’ve already given up energy and hair in this process, they weren’t even close to the most traumatic parts for me. So I’m not too concerned right now about them, although I’ll reserve the right to be sad about them next week or month.
