Trimming Treatments Further - Radiotherapy
Taking the giant leap into trusting science over convention has left me feeling somewhat anxious. It is a risk, yet as the saying "in for a penny in for a pound" goes, it has not stopped me from taking another (albeit lesser) new-thinking risk on my Radio Therapy.
The standard of care for post-mastectomy patients is to have three weeks of Monday to Friday radiotherapy. My main tumour was almost as big as my boob so there was very little space left to cut cleanly around it. As such the chest wall will need Radiotherapy to kill any cancer cells which may have been left behind. From September the standard of care was about to be amended to offer the option of a higher dose, five day alternative to the three weeks of running in and out of hospital. The situation with Covid-19 means that this change has been accelerated and I have opted to be amongst the first elective 5-day, high-dose patients.
6 months ago, at this point in my treatment, I would have been starting 4.5 months of Chemo to be followed by three weeks of Radio. Now here I sit facing a five day course of treatment to the same effect - Wow!!
As I said at the top of this post, it is decidedly nerve-wracking to diverge from the standard of care. Added to that, conversations I have had this year have lead me to believe that people's concern for the cancer patient is actually more for the poor sufferer of Chemotherapy than the sufferer of the cancer itself. We seem to have age old beliefs around martyrdom and that if it hurts it must be doing some good. I am fascinated by this, I even feel it myself, I feel almost cheated of a vile and (in my case) unecessary form of blunt medicine ..but why? Herein lies an odd set of emotions and reactions which I expect will change as the amazing individualisation of cancer care becomes more commonplace. I feel honoured to be at the forefront of this change but that does not make it an entirely easy pill to swallow!
The Radiotherapy will make me very tired and give me what sounds at best like compound sunburn. There seems to be little information about how the higher dose for a shorter period amplifies these side effects so I will just have to take that one day at a time. All I do know is that I have heard first hand from several people that these side effects can actually be more instrusive than the chemo side-effects which these days are largely mitigated with drugs. Whatever the effects are they will be being felt concurrently with having my useless ovaries switched off to invoke a high speed menopause. More on the world of hormone treatments later 🙄.
The standard of care for post-mastectomy patients is to have three weeks of Monday to Friday radiotherapy. My main tumour was almost as big as my boob so there was very little space left to cut cleanly around it. As such the chest wall will need Radiotherapy to kill any cancer cells which may have been left behind. From September the standard of care was about to be amended to offer the option of a higher dose, five day alternative to the three weeks of running in and out of hospital. The situation with Covid-19 means that this change has been accelerated and I have opted to be amongst the first elective 5-day, high-dose patients.
6 months ago, at this point in my treatment, I would have been starting 4.5 months of Chemo to be followed by three weeks of Radio. Now here I sit facing a five day course of treatment to the same effect - Wow!!
As I said at the top of this post, it is decidedly nerve-wracking to diverge from the standard of care. Added to that, conversations I have had this year have lead me to believe that people's concern for the cancer patient is actually more for the poor sufferer of Chemotherapy than the sufferer of the cancer itself. We seem to have age old beliefs around martyrdom and that if it hurts it must be doing some good. I am fascinated by this, I even feel it myself, I feel almost cheated of a vile and (in my case) unecessary form of blunt medicine ..but why? Herein lies an odd set of emotions and reactions which I expect will change as the amazing individualisation of cancer care becomes more commonplace. I feel honoured to be at the forefront of this change but that does not make it an entirely easy pill to swallow!
The Radiotherapy will make me very tired and give me what sounds at best like compound sunburn. There seems to be little information about how the higher dose for a shorter period amplifies these side effects so I will just have to take that one day at a time. All I do know is that I have heard first hand from several people that these side effects can actually be more instrusive than the chemo side-effects which these days are largely mitigated with drugs. Whatever the effects are they will be being felt concurrently with having my useless ovaries switched off to invoke a high speed menopause. More on the world of hormone treatments later 🙄.
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