Tomorrow is my LAST radiation treatment!! Hooray! After that, I'm done, done - no more treatments. Reconstruction will happen in 6-12 months and follow-up visits once every 3-6 mo. for the next 5 years, but otherwise free of the whole oncology treatment department. Phew!
It's been a while since I did any updates so here goes: the hair is finally, actually, truly coming in - like real hair not just fuzzies. Think: Natalie Portman or Chenade O'Conner, at best. Last Friday I dared to go out without my hat on - amazing! Granted, it was kinda in a part of town where I'd fit right in with my shaven head and their dreadlocks, so it was a natural fit. I've been to the grocery store and to school without the hat, but at this point, a hat is more functional than an aesthetic issue - it's cold without it! The other day I was bawling in the car (for any number of reasons, right?) and Josh asked about my tears. My response: "It's all BREEZY around my neck!!" Such is life. I can't decide, on the other hand, whether to strive for the long hair of last year, or to stick with the low maintenance version I've come to appreciate. Long, higher maintenance and warm, or short, low maintenance and breezy? I'm certain I've ruled out the mullet, though it'd solve much of the dilemma.
Eyebrows are coming back, though it seems like all the ones I've been plucking for years are returning with a vengeance while the ones I'm currently coloring in seem a bit more slow growing.
Eyelashes - I've tried to mascara them, but to no avail. Soon, though, as I can actually see a whole line of small lashes marching across my eyelid. I've lost that gaunt, blank-slate, dark circles under the eyes look from chemo as well. Things are going back to the 'old normal'!
If I were to compare radiation and chemo, I'd say radiation is much easier in some ways. Chemo has this constant swing of symptoms to manage which is emotionally, psychologically, and physically exhausting. Radiation, on the other hand, is at least predictable - every day the same routine, the same side-effects (slowly increasing). On the flip side, chemo symptoms would generally resolve in a few days where radiation is definitely a cumulative effect. I was eager for Fridays to come around b/c no treatment on the weekend, but quickly learned the burning would still increase even without treatment.
The radiated area is finally starting to peel (or "desquamate" - a new word I've learned. You know, shedding of the squamous layer of your epidermis), but it's not the same looking peel as a general sunburn. My skin, over the course of treatment, had gotten dark polka-dots that eventually blended together. This is peeling off, but the skin below is not the healthy-looking pink of fresh skin. It's more of a fresh healthy skin with a pre-existing sunburn. So I don't know if this too will peel or what will happen. I don't even want to think what my internal organs look like!
Depending how the skin heals and if it thickens or tightens when it does, will determine if I'll need the lat flap for reconstruction (I'll let you look that up if you're interested. It borders on TMI for the faint of heart). Though it's not even been suggested that I would NOT have that done - it's generally the MO after radiation according to my perfectionistic plastic surgeon - I'm hoping that the skin will do so well that I'll be able to do just tissue expander/implant on this radiated side. While I'd like to think I'd be the exception to needing the lat flap after radiation, I also was under the impression I'd never get cancer. So my hopes are tainted with a bit of realism at the same time. All kidding aside, I'd really love to not have another huge surgery before this is all over with.
So there you go! Radiation: almost done Hair: almost in Skin: almost peeled off Hooray!!
