Mid-rads Update

Radiation is moving right along. I'm through 8 of the 15 whole breast treatments and my skin is slightly pink but other than that I can't tell anything is even happening. I saw the doctor today and she said that generally with this shorter course, you're almost done before skin irritation really sets in. I hope that will be true, because I sat in the waiting room today with three women near the end of the longer course and they were complaining a lot about itching and soreness. 

Here's what the machine looks like - the table moves backward onto the white circle, and that whole huge thing rotates around to either side of me during the treatment. 

I'm definitely feeling more tired than usual, which is a common side effect of radiation. Most nights I'm ready for bed at 9:30, super early for me, but during the day I don't really notice it. It's definitely not like the full body/brain fatigue that chemo caused; I just want to go to sleep earlier than usual. Hopefully this will not get worse as the treatment goes on, but if it does I'm not too worried about it. A month from now I'll be two weeks out from the end of this already, and surely on the mend by that point.

And then I guess life will just be normal again, with the exception of going in for Herceptin every 3 weeks. I'm going to barre regularly now, cooking elaborate meals again, and trying to convince friends to take Jazzercise with me. I have a weekend trip to NYC planned with my girls for August, and we've rebooked the Denmark trip for September. And, at long last, my hair is genuinely starting to grow back. It's really blonde and fine but I can see it if I look close in a mirror, and can definitely feel it. I'm unclear on how this thin blonde hair is going to transition into my regular hair (will the same hairs just start growing in red, and I'll have weird thin blonde ends?). I probably won't know for a while, I guess; it can take up to a year before your hair is back to normal, so says the internet. A woman I see every day at radiation had red hair before and it's white as it grows back in, which is not very exciting, but I guess I can always dye it if that happens to me. Regardless, THINGS ARE HAPPENING. There is light at the end of this stupid, inconvenient tunnel. Finally.