next up... radiation

So, I had an appointment with my plastic surgeon this week... haven't seen him since about January. He did one more fill on my right side, because that area has to be expanded larger than the left because the radiation will cause it to shrink. Pretty gross. At any rate, I was happy to find that he didn't give me a hard time about the size I wanted to be, given that he had mentioned in the past about needing to be a certain size for proportional reasons. I will see him again in about 6 weeks when I am nearing the end of the radiation, when he wants to take a look at my skin.

I met with the radiation oncologist on Friday and learned about what to expect for the radiation. I am going in next week for a simulation where they will take measurements and mark my chest and other areas to identify where I will get the radiation. I will receive it to my armpit, chest and clavicle area. The icky news is that because during the surgery, they removed a tumor in my breast, they want to make sure that I am cancer free so they are going to enhance the radiation at or just below the skin level. This means that I am going to be very red. I am not looking forward to this. The burn-like redness can get as bad as a second degree burn... Of course, some people have no burn effect but considering my arm is still showing redness from some medical tape put there two weeks ago, I don't think I fall in that group.... I am also severly bummed that during radiation, I am not allowed to go swimming because it might make the marks wear off (so much for the Masters Swim class... another attempt at getting back into shape foiled again!). Geez, this is as advanced as marking technology is these days?! I know that sometimes they give people permanent tatoos to mark the areas but the doc didn't mention anything about this. maybe that's too extreme...

So, next week I have the simulation (when they mark up my body) and then when I get back from Toronto, I'll start with the radiation (week of June 14 or so). I really hope that whatever marks they are putting on, are going to last the two weeks I am away and are not going to be really obvious in whatever I wear to the wedding I am going to attend.

That's all my news for now.
Mo