Today I got mentally both closer to and farther from the end of this treatment journey with the acquisition of new information. I also managed my weepy eyes for another day, so I'm thinking I could be about to see the end of that for this cycle.
I met with Dr. Susan, who was about 30 minutes late. Thankfully it didn't take us long to get to my radiotherapy scheduled and for her to do a quick exam and explain the possible side effects (primarily tiredness but also possible sunburn-type burning and skin darkening). After a planning session on 21 March in which I get the focal points tattooed and the machine set up for me is recorded, I will start my radiotherapy on Monday, 31 March. This will be daily (except Good Friday, Easter Monday and Anzac Day) at 11.30a (to allow for drop off and exercise and to avoid school traffic). I forgot to ask how long it takes, but I seem to recall the actual "light show" part is no more than 15 minutes though I'm planning for about 2 hours round trip. I will be finished on 7 May. There is another milestone to work towards.
I felt like the end was not in sight when I learned that eyelashes can fall out 6 weeks post-chemo and it could take 3-6 months for other side effects (runny eyes and loss of taste amongst them) to go away. That's a long time to not be able to enjoy a drink (I tried a sip of Nick's wine tonight and it tasted awful). Add to that the 6-12 months it'll take for me to get over the exhaustion and regain my energy, and that makes the tunnel seem long again. I'm just going to focus on surviving the aftermath of the last round of chemo in the coming weeks - and not having to do it again. I'll also look forward to my first haircut and colour at the end of April (poor Heather is going to have quite a task given that I truly have a multi-coloured mullet at the moment) as I've lost too much hair at the top to really do the "chemo combover" anymore.
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