Radiation...NOT...

Today was my first scheduled radiation treatment. And guess what??

It didn’t happen…

…and no, not because I decided at the last minute that I wasn’t going to do it…although I was (am) still tempted by that thought.

It didn’t happen because the X-rays taken today did not match the CT scan taken the other week when I was “mapped”.

It is such a long story, and yes, I will bore you with all the humiliating details.

Once again, I found myself topless lying on a cold metal table with my arms above my head and my head turned “just so” while 4 (yes, 4) women I don’t know huddled around staring at my chest, drawing on me with sharpies, measuring this and that, adjusting my position down to the millimeter while mumbling to each other.

And once again, silent tears streamed down my face. Humiliated, cold and now in pain.

Pain? Yes, pain. Because somehow or other my left breast (can I call this expanded area a breast? For lack of a better word?) is now in the radiation field and the techs decided to “move” it and then “secure” it by using tape…

…sounds like a good plan to the uninitiated but uh…these breasts? Well, they don’t move. At all. And if you pull my breast to the side and secure its position with tape, well then, it is going to cause me pain. And it’s not going to result in the desired effect because no matter how hard they tried, the breast won’t move enough to be “out of the way”.

So…maybe, just maybe, I will need to go back to the Plastic Surgeon and have him remove some of the saline from the left breast. Not the right breast mind you…oh no…just the left. Some of the saline? Or all? Well, no one was really sure.

I knew these expanders would cause trouble for me during radiation, but before radiation? This was unexpected.

So…yeah…I suppose I could walk around for the next six months (at least) lopsided in the chest area. That sounds like fun…and oh so good for my peace of mind…(please read this in a voice that drips with sarcasm to get the desired effect of my words)

Or maybe, just maybe, the radiation team can come up with a new plan of care, a new map per se, so that I can be radiated without deflating a breast and without causing damage to any important and hard working muscles on the LEFT side of my chest. This will require the radiation team to start again at square one, to re-map me, to maybe, just maybe, add more tattoos to my skin. Yeah…whatever…I like this idea better then the whole deflate a breast and walk around lopsided idea…

So that is the idea that they went with…all dependent on Dr. M’s approval. I was there an hour and a half and when I left all I knew was that Dr. M would call me with her final decision.

Which she did. She believes that the re-mapping will work fine, she apologized for the troubles (an apology wasn’t necessary, I want things done correctly if they are going to be done), she asked if I was OK (I am sure the techs told her I was crying. Poor Dr. M, every time she sees me, I am crying), she assured me that from this point on there won’t be troubles like I had today, she assured me the areas that “need” to be radiated will be radiated and that no other area will get caught in the crossfire and she assured me that I could leave my expanded breasts just the way they are. Both of them.

And I will go back in on Wed., I will once again be X-rayed and hopefully this next X-ray will match today’s X-ray and then I will be radiated for the first time. Then I will be one down, 33 to go.

And in case you were wondering, I did not wait in the communal waiting room. I waited in an exam room, in private, where I didn’t have to make conversation about the weather with any other person wearing a hospital gown. And while glad to avoid the “elephant” sitting in a room full of cancer patients, the desired privacy issue wasn’t met as I still have to walk thru the halls wearing the gown.

I am gonna have to get over this issue of mine. Maybe. But I doubt it.