Tattoo Love

In October 2013, before I started radiation, the techs gave me four tattoos to mark the "field" that would be radiated 33 times. The only visible tattoo was on the middle left side of my chest (see picture/story here).

For two years I've looked at that dot and thought, "I should tattoo over this and turn it into something beautiful." Because that's what God does; He takes broken things and makes them beautiful.

So last week I did.

I decided to have it turned into a heart to symbolize the love that got me through cancer; the greatest love being from Jesus.

I just love how it turned out. Small but very, very meaningful.

It's a daily reminder of my one of my favorite verses from Romans. One that carried me though cancer treatment... "We also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint, because God's LOVE has been poured into our HEARTS."

Yes.

Done with Radiation!

Yesterday was my final day of radiation! Not only was it my last day of radiation, it was my last day of all cancer treatment. Forever.

It's hard to believe I've been in treatment for 8 months. It seems both shorter and longer. It's still kind of surreal.

I had 33 rounds of radiation. 27 to my whole breast, chest, and armpit. And the final 6 were to my mastectomy scar line. I'm happy to report that burns in my armpit are already getting better thanks to Aquaphor, Miaderm, and Silver Sulfadiazine cream. I'm starting to feel major fatigue and probably will for the next several weeks. But it's nothing I can't manage.

Elise came with me to my last day of radiation (she stayed in the waiting room with my Mom). We wore pink to celebrate!

DONE!

Now I will have follow up appointments with all three of my oncologists (radiation, medical, and surgical) every 3-4 months. And in 6 months I can have my permanent reconstruction surgery (the implants I have now are temporary). TNBC is most likely to reoccur/metastasize within three years, so there will be lots of vigilance in watching me for a while.

Burn Baby Burn

I've now finished 27 of my 33 radiation treatments and I am burning. My whole left chest, breast, and armpit looks like they have the worst sunburn you can imagine. The most painful area is my armpit. It's so red it's almost purple. I'd post a picture but I don't want to scare people. Seriously. I put the rx creams and lotions on it constantly but I'm still burning. On Monday I'm going to talk to my radiation oncologist about how many more treatments my poor skin can tolerate. Please pray that I don't burned too bad.

Radiation is also zapping my energy. I cannot wait until it's over and I can spend some much-needed time resting and recovering.

I keep reminding myself that I'm close to the END. When I'm finished with radiation, I'm finished with cancer treatment. For good.

I see my medical oncologist and breast surgeon next week for my 3 month follow up. It's been almost 3 months since my surgery and NED declaration. I'll see them every 3-6 months for a while. I know these appointments are routine, but they still scare me. Please pray that I will have good appointments and no recurrence scares.

In happier news, Elise is a great joy and a distraction from the pain and anxiety of all of this. She really gets cuter every day. I'm just in love with this age. She's now 5 months! 

My heart

This weekend I'm leading the "A Bump and A Lump" team in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k. I'll post pictures and more about it next week! 

Radiation In Progress

I've now had 7 radiation treatments and so far it's been easy. The biggest pain is driving to La Jolla every day and getting childcare for Elise. But the treatments are quick and painless (so far). I'm already starting to experience some of the fatigue that can come along with radiation (or maybe I just have a 4 month old?).

My radiation countdown calendar -- photo take after radiation #3

They only radiate my left armpit and left chest. So they gave me four "prison tattoos" to mark the borders of the treatment area so that they radiate the same place every time.

Here is one of them...

Gangsta

Radiate Me

Despite my amazing pathology report from surgery and the great job the chemo did in kicking the cancer's butt, I'm still going to be doing radiation.

So, why radiation if there are likely no living cancer cells left?

Because there still could be a few rouge cancer cells left around the chest wall or lymph node areas that surgery didn't find and chemo didn't kill. So radiation is the final weapon in our arsenal to kill any potential cells left. Also, I did have at least one positive lymph node before chemo which often means radiation is often recommended in that case. And because I'm young and have triple negative breast cancer which is known to be aggressive, all three of my oncologists recommend not skipping radiation, so I'm doing it.

I'll have 6 weeks of radiation starting in early October. I'll go every day, Monday through Friday to have my left breast area and lymph node area around it radiated. The actual radiation takes less than 10 minutes each day; the annoying part is going every day.

The radiation is only to one area of my body, so usually the side effects are minimal. There is some burning to the skin (like a bad sunburn) and some people experience a lot of fatigue. But it's nowhere close to as bad as chemo in terms of side effects.

Sometimes radiation can cause problems for breast reconstruction. So I'm definitely praying that doesn't happen. But if it does, I'll deal with it. I'm less concerned with having perfect breasts than I am at being able to live to see Elise grow up.

Once I start radiation I'll do another post about what it's like and how it's going. You can read more about radiation and watch a video about it here if this topic interests you. I know radiation isn't portrayed in the movies/TV shows for cancer treatment like chemo is, so most people have no idea what it is.


What radiation looks like. That's not me.

Once I finish radiation I'm DONE with all cancer treatments. It will be so amazing to finally be done!